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February 5, 2007
the last kiss
Recent movie rollup: liked The Departed and Pan's Labyrinth; bored senseless by Smokin' Aces; hated The Last Kiss. This being the Stank page, I'll skip straight to hate.
There's not much to like about The Last Kiss. A remorseless contrivance machine written by Paul Haggis, it makes his Crash plot machinations look downright plausible. I'm going to focus, however, on the most implausible contrivance of all: Rachel Bilson's character. Once again, we have a fantasy girl that can only exist in movies. 
For no reason other than looking at Zach Braff's back in line, she hunts him down in a photogenic treehouse and asks him if he has a girlfriend. When told yes, Bilson suggests he pursue her anyway. That is the sum of their flirtation and, really, of her character. There is no reason for her to be interested in this schlub, not even the faintest whiff of pretext. He is the male lead, and the writer needed an implausibly hot young thing to throw herself at him, and so was she concocted.
I am so very tired of this character in films. How come you never see a female scribe write women-as-accessories like this?
Actual dialogue that comes out of Bilson's mouth, after she's sprinted braless through the rain to Braff's car:
"Oh my god, my shirt is all wet and clingy. You can see everything!"No, it wasn't a porno flick. It was just written that way.
Points out Stank troll Tommy:
By quoting that line of dialogue from Rachel Bilson, you've made sure a whole bunch of adolescents (or adolescent-equivalents) will now be eager to see "The Last Kiss"God forbid I help its DVD sales. For the record, you hear about 'em, but you don't see 'em.
posted by john at 9:01 AM • permalink