Imitative of P.T. Anderson's Magnolia but an hour shorter and in Italian, Gabriele Muccino's film juggles various people's crises to the obstinate sawing of a string orchestra. The movie might have stuck with Carlo (Stefano Accorsi), an advertising professional who's tempted to stray from his pregnant live-in girlfriend, Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno). But Muccino lets his Steadicam loose among peripheral folk in a distracted quest for universality. Carlo's male friends experience various styles of wanderlust, all noisy; Giulia's mother ('70s star Stefania Sandrelli) has had it with her psychiatrist husband; somebody's father dies.

In short, L'ultimo bacio has a greater number of uninteresting characters than any film could support. It's obvious that a conservative ending is the only one possible, since the film hasn't laid the groundwork for any other kind, so it comes as no surprise when someone says -- without irony and with the apparent endorsement of the film -- "Normality is the true revolution." The psychiatrist concludes, "If people have been marrying for thousands of years, there must be a reason" -- a remark of sufficient vapidity to discredit psychiatry forever. In Italian with English subtitles. (115 minutes) At the Columbus.