MANY FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS IN `THE LAST KISS'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

FROM THE SUBLIME hysteria of Anna Magnani to the operatic romanticism of Lucino Visconti to the dead-serious sentimentality of the likes of ``Cinema Paradiso,'' Italian cinema has never suffered from a shortage of excess.

Gabriele Muccino's ``The Last Kiss'' piles on more. A multicharacter soap opera often played at fever pitch, the film's substantial saving grace is its sure insight into human nature and relationships. Yes, the emphatic, high-decibel performances continually threaten to turn this slightly comic romantic drama into unintentional self-parody. But sound observation remains a welcome cinematic rarity, even when it's screamed at us.

The film basically charts the course of five emotionally retarded buddies - all pushing 30 and freaked out about it - and the extremely difficult women who love them.

The central couple is Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) and Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno). After three years of living together, she's become pregnant, and that makes Carlo extra reluctant to take the final steps toward permanent commitment. Exacerbating that situation in the nicest manner possible is Francesca (teen model Martina Stella), a dream of a blond schoolgirl who somehow convinces herself that Carlo is destined to be her soulmate.

Although one of Carlo's friends has just gotten satisfactorily married, the other three are even more confused than he is. Recent father Adriano (Giorgio Pasotti) can't stop fighting with his demonic wife Livia (Sabrina Impacciatore). Dreadlocked Alberto (Marco Cocci) beds a different woman every night. And the self-dramatizing Paolo (Claudio Santamaria) can neither deal with his father's imminent death nor the fact that his girlfriend dumped him.

They all fantasize about taking a boat to Turkey or driving a truck across Africa, anything to get away from their unhappiness and start life anew. Of course, only they believe that, even if their travel plans come true, it will make a lick of difference to their psyches.

And just to point out that it isn't just ridiculously attractive, overheated late 20s who can't get their love lives in order, a story strand involves Giulia's mother Anna (Stefania Sandrelli, stalwart of classic, more lighthearted fare such as ``Divorce, Italian Style'' and ``Seduced and Abandoned'') trying to leave her passionless marriage to a psychologist.

Writer-director Muccino has no problem keeping all of these and many more plot conniptions lively, and not just because his entire cast is forever on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Handheld camera work and fast-paced (but remarkably coherent) interscene editing give the movie terrific momentum without sacrificing a single, knifepoint accurate character revelation.

But then, everybody waves their hands, cusses their brains out and suffers a life-or-death personal crisis every other minute. Italian anti-defamation watchdogs probably have a case, but nevertheless, ``The Last Kiss'' is rich with universal truths about the things men and women do to each other - and it's probably better, in the long run, to purge them rather than suffer in silence.

THE LAST KISS (L'ULTIMO BACIO) - Three stars

(Rated R: language, drug use, sex, nudity)

Starring: Stefano Accorsi, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Stefania Sandrelli, Martina Stella, Giorgio Pasotti, Claudio Santamaria, Marco Cocci, Sabrina Impacciatore.

Director: Gabriele Muccino.

Running time: 1 hr. 54 min.

Playing: Town Center 5, Encino; Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Fine Arts, L.A.; University 6, Irvine.

In a nutshell: Ridiculously attractive Italians have ridiculously overwrought - but nonetheless insightful - romantic problems in this multicharacter soap-opera import.

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Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) is tempted by the younger Francesca (Martina Stella) in ``The Last Kiss.''