Review: Just a Kiss

The relationship and fidelity issues of a group of thirtysomething (?) friends. Ron Eldard is Dag (pronounced ‘Dahg’, not Dag or Dog), who can’t seem to keep his John Thomas out of women’s genitals. This will cause problems not just for he and his girlfriend (Kyra Sedgwick), but also best friend Pete (Patrick Breen), whose dancer girlfriend (Marley Shelton) randomly blurts out about having an affair with Dag. Now everyone fucking hates Dag, and a jilted Pete has a mid-air fling with Colleen (Sarita Choudhury), who turns out to be the girlfriend of Andre (Taye Diggs). Andre is a bit of a pants man himself, having been the occasional lover of Shelton, and now trying to get into Sedgwick’s pants when she turns up at Shelton’s apartment after her separation from TV commercial director Dag. Got all that? Well add a bunny-boiler with a kinky sex fetish who has a crazy stalker crush on Pete, who once played a wacky character in an ad on TV. Zoe Caldwell plays Shelton’s mother, Peter Dinklage has a brief cameo, as do Idina Menzel and Ron Rifkin.

Disastrous, ridiculously overpitched, and unfunny 2002 romcom from director Fisher Stevens (the wacky scientist from “Short Circuit” and its sequel) and co-star/screenwriter Patrick Breen (one of those people with a familiar but hard-to-place face) who adapts his own play, which was hopefully better than it is in cinematic form. It plays like a slow-witted Martian’s attempt at portraying the romantic interactions of human beings from their own poorly understood observations. There’s barely a credible human being to be found her amongst Marisa Tomei’s bizarro bunny-boiler, Taye Diggs’ constipation-obsessed lover-man, and Breen’s depressed cuckold etc. I’ve seen a lot of shitty indie romcoms in my time, but this is one of the worst for sure, which is odd given the cast are, if not appealing to me, certainly pretty established names and faces. It’s not helped by Stevens’ overly stylised direction with an occasional comic book distortion look that immediately grates, and the overall quality of the DV is appalling. Everyone looks shiny and sweaty, and at one point Marley Shelton’s arm looks to be on fire.

It also has to be said that the cast don’t really gel, perhaps partly because they’re all different ages, and some too old for their roles. Breen was 42 playing 35ish, Taye Diggs and Marley Shelton are only now in 2017 aged 46 and 42 respectively, whilst Ron Eldard, Kyra Sedgwick, and Marisa Tomei are at least around the same age as one another (they’re in their early 50s now and were in their late 30s at the time). I’m pretty sure one and all were meant to be around the same age group and I just wasn’t having it. Of the cast, Kyra Sedgwick fares best. Although perhaps a bit old for the role, she’s good as always. Marisa Tomei looks absolutely positively stunning, but never manages to make her crazy stalker with kinky sex fetishes work as either realistic or amusing fantasy. It’s a shame, because I normally love her to bits. She, Marley Shelton, and Aussie-born Zoe Caldwell act like no human being I’ve ever encountered in 37 years on this planet. Diggs and his constipation patter and Sarita Choudhury continue the parade of weirdo alien people, whilst Breen is terribly uninteresting, and Ron Eldard is terribly unappealing. Peter Dinklage walks on for one scene to portray the only halfway amusing character. I wanted to see a movie about that guy, not these alien-interpreted bizarro martian people. I mean, the film contains situations that are fairly stock-standard, but none of the characters convince as real nor manoeuver through these situations in a remotely identifiably human manner. It’s the weirdest thing, and also interminably dull. Stevens may be well-versed in comedy, but he has absolutely no idea how to make the film’s wildly shifting tone work in the slightest (Suicide attempts, for instance share the screen with references to constipation and farcical aeroplane disasters).

Determined to be the quirkiest quirk that ever quirked quirk, this romantic comedy with occasionally black edges takes familiar relationship issues and treats them in an entirely unconvincing, unrealistic manner that sadly isn’t even interesting as romantic fantasy. The characters are too unpleasant for that, for starters. Don’t be fooled by the cast, they’re no help either. Terrible, pointless, and ugly to boot. I’m sure this indie flick will appeal to someone, but I’m nowhere near that someone, and I’m not sure that someone was born on the planet Earth. What the hell is this?

Rating: D