Zach Braff, please Google your own name.

I titled this post in the way that I did in hopes of giving myself the opportunity to suggest to Mr. Braff that he ditch the person with whom he is currently hooked, and entertain the notion that I'd make a decent wife. So, if you're interested, ZB, please allow me present my argument. Though, I do feel that my reasons should be kept between the two of us, so forgive me for refraining in this particular forum. See? I can be discrete...!

In any event, last weekend, I watched Last Kiss. This movie didn't stir me up in the way that some of my more socio-politically charged choices do, and, as a result, I've been feeling unsure about how to write about it. I went on a hunt to track down the Italian version on which it's based (L'Ultimo Bacio/Last Kiss), secretly hoping that the original would be somehow greater and more enthralling than its American knock-off. But there's something in the tone of the Italian version that I found off-putting. And, true to form, Mr. Braff, with all his big goofy soul, left me seduced. And Rachel Bilson... It's just so hard not to fall in love with this girl! She is cute and irreverent and bladelike all at once.

But let me start with the bigger picture here: The Italian movie is about guys resisting adulthood, about making mistakes and goofing off, and about narrowly avoiding consequences. None of the female characters ever seem to have the full story and therefore feel less fleshed-out, as though their decisions are never quite logical. And this is a movie about cheating. The American version is about making a conscious decision to be an adult, about being a human and dealing with the inherent repercussions, and, in the end, it's about fair-handed, earned, forgiveness.

Now, I want to take a closer look at the respective soundtracks. ZB's hand is clearly all over that of Last Kiss. He's a fan of bands on that fringe between mainstream and indie and they're all over the place here. Notably present, as in Garden State, is an appearance by Cary Brothers, a pretty great LA-based artist who I fondly remember adoring when he was the imported boy in several of my (all-girls') high-school plays. He would've been a senior when I was a lowly 8th-grader, I believe. Apparently, they're friends. If I actually knew Cary Brothers personally, I'd TOTALLY play that card. Alas... But anyway, there is a particular appropriateness to the music that wasn't part of the Italian version. For instance, during the scene in which Michael (the ZB character) and Kim (the Rachel Bilson character) have sex, it's moody and desperate, but in the other movie, the equivalent scene was accompanied by big, jazzy stripper music. The music says that Carlo (Michael's Italian alter-ego) is so taken with the moment that he doesn't even try to feel guilty for the fact that he's cheating on his pregnant girlfriend, whereas Michael's music speaks to his pointed choice in favor of the sexual encounter, half of his brain still angry from his fight with Jenna (the girlfriend)and the other half already regretting what he's doing.

And then there's the matter that Carlo lies in the end when Michael comes clean. Guilia, the Italian Jenna, quickly gives in while Jenna is given all the information she needs to make an educated choice. And Jenna makes Michael sit on their front doorstep, in the rain, for days on end. And the fact that Francesca is a kid... a kid with big boobs, but a kid. And Kim is young and funny and impish, but capable of real grown-up romantic yearnings. And all of Michael's friends are coping, with humor and pathos, with crises of their own, whereas Carlo's all seem to be aching to shirk all their responsibilities and to be unable to answer for their extended adolescences. I guess it boils down to the simple fact that Tony Goldwyn (yep, the evil dude from Ghost), the director of the American version, has somehow managed to add both layered depth and an affectionate, wry sense of humor to what was initially a pretty straightforward, Euro-bland romantic drama.

And then, please indulge me while I come back to Zach Braff one more time. What is it about this actor? His body is sorta boneless and filleted and affords him a peculiar liquid variety of movement that he uses sometimes towards a more slapstick end, but, more often that not, seems simultaneously slightly out-of-control and very relaxed. His face: well, let's face it: the boy has no chin (sorry, baby) but he's got a big expressive mouth and eyes that ache and surge and plunder and twinkle and chuckle and deviate all at the same time. While he could never be overtly sexy, and that sitcom-ish Dr. John Dorian face still surfaces on occasion, I never doubted for a second that Michael, the man the created in this movie, was worthy of the respective loves of Jenna and Kim. Hence my desire to marry him myself!

Now, really, this movie isn't groundbreaking in any way, but it IS a grown-up look at being a grown-up. A grown-up human. And at the need to forgive each other for being human, despite our grown-up-ed-ness. If I wanted to, I could pull out a million flaws in it, too, I'm sure. But for once, I just wanted to like this movie because it was populated with likeable people and because all those likeable people get their just desserts in the end. Is that so bad? Has my lack of snarkiness here let you down, my loyal readers? Or can you forgive me and call it my own crisis-at-being-30?