just a kiss (2022) film Review

This movie seems like it went through a style checklist, with poignant moments competing with comedic ones, deep dialogue overshadowed by quick one-liners, and a random use of rotoscope animation, perhaps just for the cool factor.

Directed by actor Fisher Stevens, 'Just a Kiss' kicks off with an inappropriate kiss and spirals into a chaotic story involving misunderstandings, plane crashes, hospital visits, and more, with occasional animated scenes reminiscent of 'Waking Life.' However, unlike 'Waking Life,' where all characters are animated, 'Just a Kiss' mixes realistic photography with sudden 'rotomation,' creating a jarring shift in reality. The characters go from being believable to awkward animated displays, leaving us questioning their existence in the movie. In 'Waking Life,' the animated style worked seamlessly, enhancing the overall experience. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for 'Just a Kiss,' and I'm about to explain why.

I can picture a scenario where this could actually work, like in a movie similar to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," seamlessly transitioning between reality and cartoons. Unfortunately, in this case, it feels like nothing more than a distracting gimmick. The entire film suffers from the same issue—it's all surface, lacking any depth to draw us in. The characters, dialogue, and adventures come off as mere theatrical gestures, with the actors simply vessels for the director's tricks.

Take, for instance, a scene on an airplane where a character uses a cell phone to express love, inadvertently causing the plane to crash due to deadly signals. It might make us laugh in a comedy like "Airplane!" but feels out of place in a movie trying to engage us emotionally in characters' romantic struggles. Mixing farce with drama only serves to highlight that the drama itself is farcical.

As for the genre of the movie, it's a mystery. The film constantly reinvents itself, shifting styles abruptly. There's one standout performance by Marisa Tomei as a psychic bartender who interprets meanings in beer rings, but even her character is a crazy, homicidal maniac. At least she stays consistent, unlike the other characters who morph from scene to scene.

The rest of the cast, including Ron Eldard, Kyra Sedgwick, Patrick Breen, Marley Shelton, Taye Diggs, Sarita Choudhury, and Bruno Amato, do their best with characters undergoing constant reinvention. Zoe Caldwell, playing a choreographer who is Shelton's character's mother, delivers moments of effective acting that feel disconnected from the rest of the movie, like flipping through channels.

It's worth noting that Eldard's character is named "Dag," supposedly inspired by Dag Hammerskjold, although the film misspells Hammarskjold's name. Perhaps there's irony in the fact that this Dag survives a plane crash, or maybe it's just another quirky detail lost in the movie's inconsistency.