The Last Kiss

just watched this, and I have to admit, it wasn't that bad, but it was really kinda dull. It's about this 29-ish guy (played by Zach Braff) who realizes his life is kinda set: his girlfriend (the gorgeous Jacinda Barrett) is pregnant, she wants to buy a house, he's got a good job,yadda yadda... In the 50s, this would be the definition of a perfect life (well, except for the not married part), but since Mike is from this so-called Gen X, he gets antsy about it. And when he meets this cute carefree college girl he immediately falls for her. All the while we see his three childhood friends who all have relationship problems of their own, as if that age was some sort of momentous passage to real grown-up land or something, which apparently is supposed to scare guys.

SPOILER ALERT

Mike does sleep with the girl, and understandably his gf is pissed. Apparently that's when boy genius realizes what he has is great and he really has messed up, so he tries to win her back.

END SPOILER

The main problem with the movie is we aren't made to understand clearly what Mike's problem is. Just because he's in his late-20s and his life is set doesn't automatically mean he should have this giant problem with it. As if that were an automatic recipe for a quarter life crisis. One of Mike's friend (played by Casey Affleck), who is married and has a kid, is in a similar situation, but in his case you can sorta empathize with him because you understand from his interactions with his wife there might be some issues between these two. Mike, from what we see on screen, just comes off as a slight moron who's bored, and that's a pretty big problem for this type of relationship movie, where characters are everything.
Anytime of these relationship movies for the young come out (like Garden State) they call it The Graduate for a new generation. But as someone who's seen that movie a bunch of times, I can honestly say The Graduate is The Graduate for today's generation. That flick is still as relevant today as it was in 1967, and though I'd love for an equivalent movie to be made for us Gen-Xers, I haven't seen it happen yet.