Kiss Me Again

Ten years after The Last Kiss, the same group of friends from Rome is now around forty. Carlo and Giulia, the couple at the heart of the first film, have separated and are trying to raise their daughter while starting new lives. The others are not doing much better. One is fighting depression, one comes back after years away from the son he abandoned, one is caught between a marriage and a new love. The dreams of their twenties are gone, and they are discovering that being grown up did not bring the calm they expected.

Gabriele Muccino came back to this group of characters with almost the whole original cast: Stefano Accorsi, Pierfrancesco Favino, Claudio Santamaria, Giorgio Pasotti, with Vittoria Puccini now playing Giulia. Muccino's style is all here: constant movement, overlapping voices, people shouting their feelings at each other in kitchens and on the street. It can be exhausting. It is also very alive.

What makes it work is the sense of time passing. These are characters we met at a turning point, and now we see what the turn cost them. The storyline about depression, and the friends who don't know how to help, is the most moving. Not subtle, not always easy to like, but honest about midlife in a way few Italian films are. Watch The Last Kiss first.