Gabriele Muccino
Baciami Ancora

KISS ME AGAIN
Subtitle - "To call a movie 'The Last Kiss' and title the sequel 'Kiss Me Again' is already in itself appalling"

THE MEN:

The Hypochondriac - Carlo (Stefano Accorsi)

Despite the best intentions he left us with at the end of "The Last Kiss", we find him thirstier for women than Rocco Siffredi after six months of abstinence.
By his own admission, he has spent the last two years sleeping with pretty much every hole that crossed his pants fly. With a clever directorial move, it is suggested that the only ones who escaped his libidinous fury are a very old aunt in her nineties and the lock on the cellar door.
At some point, he discovers there's a bug under his skin somewhere in his head. He goes mad: he starts sweating and panting worse than a shepherd from Marsica, he pesters his ex-wife and starts giving her talks like: "While I was unconscious, I first saw the Madonna, then the Magician Herrera, and then your face. Please, let's put a stone on the recent past and the fact that I've slept with the entire teaching staff of the schools our daughter has attended/attends/will attend in the next fifteen years and try again. This time it will be forever, I can feel it".

A small note on style: Accorsi at thirty had a very slight receding hairline. When girls drooled over him, we guys automatically thought: "Yeah, yeah... I’d like to see if you still like him in 5 years when you'll be able to see the future in that bald globe"
At forty, he still has the same barely visible receding hairline.
Mysteries of faith.

The Prodigal Son - Adriano (Giorgio Pasotti)

After an absence of ten years, he returns to Italy and looks like a re-edition of Enzo Paolo Turchi in a street performer version. Or Giovanni of Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo in the Zen master sketch.
After seeing him with that haircut, one would expect him to first find a good hairdresser. But no: he decides to take over Paolo's business (see infra) and enter the market for plaster votive statues (...). He tries to rebuild the relationship with a son he hasn’t seen for 10 years, telling him a story as old as the hills about an anaconda eating a whole crocodile. The kid, however, has had Sky since he was still in diapers, is used to Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and has a huge poster of Piero & Alberto Angela in his room. In short: the snake story doesn't have the desired effect and the child leaves, leaving his father pondering the similarities between humans and monkeys. Desperate, Adriano takes refuge in a trattoria, where he meets a woman, probably a hairdresser by profession, who after two minutes tells him the story of her life, the failure of her marriage, and invites him to spend the next day in the company of her children. Personally, with such a haircut, I wouldn't let him near even my plumber, but there it is.

The Messed-up One - Paolo (Claudio Santamaria)

Already in "The Last Kiss" it was clear he wasn't too well.
He's been seeing a psychotherapist since "Remember Me" came out, ever since he saw Bellucci play the role of an actress.
In every film, he finds himself with a relative on their deathbed or almost. If I were him, I would have had a long chat with the screenwriter by now.
While Adriano is imprisoned in a high-security prison in Colombia, he sleeps with his wife. On the aspiring drug trafficker's return, he decides to make amends by giving him his business, dealing in religious figurines. What a friend...

The Upright One - Marco (Pierfrancesco Favino)

He tried for a long time to have a child. To no avail.
At the beginning of the film, he reluctantly confesses to his lifelong friends that he hasn’t made love to his wife for about a month and a half. The result? Everyone mocks him with no hesitancy or shame.
Meanwhile, his wife spends all her time in front of the mirror, hangs out with silly and somewhat slutty friends, and returns home every night at ungodly hours.
After about half an hour of film, a terrible suspicion infiltrates his mind: "Do you think I might be cuckolded?!".
Again, he talks about it with his most trusted friends, who — demonstrating great honesty and tact — confess: "We don’t give a damn."
When he discovers his suspicions are well-founded, he has a brilliant idea: "I’ll ask for a transfer to London, then you and I will go together, and everything will be sorted out!"
Yes, and the marmots will wrap chocolate...

The Womanizer - Alberto (Marco Cocci)

He practically appears in three scenes. In two, he has just finished making love.
In the third, he too has an enlightening idea: "Let's borrow some money from Marco (the one with the transfer to London) and let's go to Brazil to cultivate coffee".
Deep down, he considers his closest friends to be failed derelicts.
Evidently, he's the only one who has figured out something about life.

THE WOMEN

The Indecisive Bride - Giulia (Vittoria Puccini)

Thanks to the failure of her marriage with Carlo, she finds herself living for free in an apartment of 180 square meters, well-furnished, in an elegant building, with parking space, underfloor heating, and reasonable condo fees.
As if that weren't enough, she lives with a handsome layabout, aspiring actor (despite having the expressiveness of an aluminum window frame) who spends his days rereading scripts.
After Carlo discovers he has a tumor in his brain, she finds herself dealing with an immature man in a 40-year-old's body who throws pathetic platitudes at her about the passage of time, what's important, and he never loved anyone else but her...
Needless to say, she falls for it like a soft pear.

Technical note: after the screamer Mezzogiorno (evidently her vocal cords couldn't withstand another Muccino film), here comes the icy Puccini.
If nothing else, you don't have to work the TV volume hard to avoid pissing off the neighbors.

The Painful Bride - Livia (Sabrina Impacciatore)

Ten years earlier, her husband (Adriano) left her and her son to go smoke grass in South America.
To console herself, she wisely starts a relationship with Paolo: one of her husband's best friends, a manic-depressive schizophrenic who owns a sacred objects shop.
My girl, you can't complain if life's not smiling on you.

The Joyful Bride (then Regretful Lover) - Veronica (Daniela Piazza)

Marco's wife. She decides to drown the sorrow of not being able to get pregnant by going out every night with her friends.
At some point, she meets a hottie about 10 years younger than her who describes himself with these precise words:
"Veronica?!? Hi! I am Lorenzo, our parents know each other! You used to come to the sea with us! You know, I now write songs... I take art photos, I paint... I try, you know! I write Italian songs, but I also sing in French, English... everything! Why don't you come to the countryside with me? Actually, it's a studio house, but if you come I'll show you what I do!"

Needless to say, within a couple of shots, they are both naked on a window sill doing the Catapult of the Derrick Twins, but without the Derrick Twins.

THE FILM

Reviewing a Muccino film can prove very difficult.
Because, let's admit it, the (very strong) temptation is to dismiss it as total crap, criticize the actors and direction, complain about the Italian cinema crisis, accuse it all of banality and the usual things the director has always been accused of...

So, let's put it this way: "Kiss Me Again" is the classic Muccino film.
There are his usual rapid and nervous sequence shots, which sometimes work and sometimes make you feel seasick.
There are his usual long-winded dialogues: romanticized, implausible, almost "contrived" for the times, places, and ways the characters find themselves uttering them.
There are the usual outbursts, the usual long-held frustration-anger that explodes in clenched teeth arguments at the least opportune moment.
And, above all, there are his usual characters and usual stories: grown-ups still acting childlike, erotomaniacs, and schizophrenics who just refuse to grow up (the men), dissatisfied, frustrated, aspiring sluts who become repentant sluts (the women) who just can’t manage to kick the aforementioned big boys in the butt for good. Caricatures saying and doing things destined to remain incomprehensible, figures cut with an ax, without a clear understanding of the model, changing their minds continuously, making sudden decisions, ending relationships, and mending years of deep wounds within minutes, for no apparent reason.

If you Love Muccino, you'll Love this film.

Otherwise, you'll feel like writing a review like this one...