Judging by the opening theme a la the black and white cast montage, and the merciless soapy atmosphere, something tells me that “Kiss Me Again” was actually touted to be a drama on primetime television, and somewhere along the way, it became a film. Which is a concept that becomes less and less far-fetched as the film progresses into a quasi-intellectual, quasi-Bohemian melodrama set in the chic New York setting.
So, we’re forced to sit through diatribe after diatribe of philosophy and politics until we finally get to the meat and bones, which ends as nothing more than a typical soap opera. Julian is a pompous professor who begins falling in love with one of his students, a delectable girl from Spain (Mirelly Taylor).
In an attempt to have his cake and eat it too, he manipulates his wife into running an ad for a threesome. Guess who responds to the ad. “Kiss Me Again” ends up feeling like the watered down remake of a better foreign film, except there’s only a short film in the same vein. After watching the short film that inspired this, it’s a sure bet that Taylor Smith’s film works better in a short format, only because there’s no padding, and no predictability.
“Kiss Me Again” is an often rambling bit of romance that glosses over the same cliché romantic dissection we’ve seen a thousand times over in Woody Allen films, and the most recent “The Last Kiss.” Julian is in a rut, his wife is well meaning, beautiful, and inept, while Julian’s love interest is seductive, a caricature, and—oh yes—beautiful.
There’s just no new ground explored here, so you’ll see the same old plot twists, and contrivances you’ve seen time and time again. And after the fifth music montage, and obligatory sex scene, you’ll be anything but amused at Smith’s anxious attempts to create something other than what’s on-screen. Meanwhile, we’re treated to the typically average performances by Winnick and London who are an uninteresting on-screen couple, as Darrell Hammond is wasted as the comic relief who pops on-screen every twenty minutes to throw flat quips at our main characters.
“Kiss Me Again” is limp artificial art house fare with clichés, and rehashed plot devices abound. It’s an accomplishment when a film can make girl-on-girl utterly boring.
