Last Kiss, The

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Stops your heart and keeps your belly jiggling with laughter. It's an improbably sunny tragicomedy.

The New Yorker David Denby

An Altman-influenced movie made without the master's acrid bitterness. The Last Kiss may come out of Italian opera and comedy, but in spirit it's Shakespearean -- objective, impassive, and at peace with a world in which men and women manage to be both ordinary and extraordinary. [5 August 2002, p.80]

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A crowd-pleaser in the deepest sense, mixes heartbreak and happiness together until you don't even want to see them apart.

Variety David Rooney

Craftily combining elements that speak directly to three different generations, this accomplished ensemble piece is shaping up to be the surprise homegrown hit of the season.

Boston Globe Jules Verdone

More movies should be so funny and perceptive, with writing this sharp and acting this believable.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

While Last Kiss may strike some as a calculated crowd-pleaser, it's cleverly calculated, perceptive and often quite funny -- and a bit darker than it may first appear.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

In the end, The Last Kiss holds less a cynical view of the matrimonial state than one of considered irony.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

It's a frisky, funny roundelay starring Stefania Sandrelli, and it features enough shouting and arm-waving to power a windmill.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Think "Sex and the City" with men, only in Italian and with lots more hollering and hand gestures.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

You get to know each person just well enough to compare them, allowing you to judge as you like; the film, nicely, refrains from moralizing.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Both a witty ode to and a poignant lament for the choices we make.

The New York Times Dave Kehr

Provides more than enough sentimental catharsis for a satisfying evening at the multiplex.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

It's not Fellini, by any means, but it's lively. Never stops moving, even though it crashes into cliches along the way.

LA Weekly Dan Fienberg

The air of self-imposed misery can dampen the film's humor, but Muccino never stays still long enough for the emotions to become leaden, and the strong cast carries the film to its striking, bittersweet conclusion.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Its portrait of the many ways we can complicate our romantic lives may have a few serious moments, but it's intended to go down easy, and that's what it does.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The vigorous, unsubtle acting provides consistent pleasure, once you stop expecting it to seem realistic.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

Walking a tightrope between high farce and emotional truth, writer-director Gabriele Muccino's breathlessly paced Italian comedy The Last Kiss manages to stay just this side of melodrama.

Chicago Reader Hank Sartin

Almost frantically intercutting between the characters, the movie spends so much energy trying to charm us that when the emotional stakes are raised we're too exhausted to care.

New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf

It's the usual struggle of growing up and growing old, but Muccino's twists are plucky and revealing when he's not suffocating us with heavy-handed mortality and pathos.

Film Threat Merle Bertrand

Makes a good chick flick for guys who want to appear artsy by taking their date to a foreign language film. Just remember: front row...and don't forget the aspirin.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Even the film's ironic ending is deftly handled, its cynicism is tempered by a certain rueful wisdom.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

It's in no way a stupid movie. The trouble is that there's only so much emotional energy you can expend on these assholes before you start wondering why you're paying attention to them at all.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The message behind all of this is difficult to nail down. Mars and Venus? Adults who haven't grown up? The last fling syndrome? Doing what you want instead of doing what you must?

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole

Though credibly performed and photographed, it's hard to care about a film that proposes as epic tragedy the plight of a callow rich boy who is forced to choose between his beautiful, self-satisfied 22-year-old girlfriend and an equally beautiful, self-satisfied 18-year-old mistress.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

The film's "never grow up" refrain plays like a broken record, until, in an abrupt (but not unexpected) turnaround at film's end, it fixes itself.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

The director knows how to apply textural gloss, but his portrait of sex-as-war is strictly sitcom.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Through it all, Muccino piles on one shrill confrontation after another. At times, he seems headed for the melodramatic turf owned and operated by Pedro Almodóvar, but where the young Almodóvar would have deployed a prankish wit and the older Almodóvar scraped toward the humanity beneath.