Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Kiss, Kiss!’ on Netflix, a Polish Rom-Com With an Oogy Womanizer Protagonist

Poland continues to crank out weird rom-coms like Kiss, Kiss! (now on Netflix), and they all seem to awkwardly ape dated Hollywood tropes, e.g., elaborate lies/subterfuge, doomed weddings, wacky scenes with animals, stuff like that. This one is a little more straightforward, about a ladykiller setting his sights on a woman who should slap him with a restraining order, but instead lets him push her impending wedding ever closer to the edge of the cliff. Love works in mysterious ways, sure, but does it ever, ever work like this? Not really. 

KISS, KISS!: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Tomek (Mateusz Kosciukiewicz) is a capitalization-necessary Piece of Work. He’s a serial womanizer who not only drives too fast, but parks haphazardly and with no consideration for laws or courtesy. We meet him on his way to work with his girlfriend, who wants him to meet her parents. He parks the car at a stupid angle on the sidewalk, then reminds her that the sex may be great, but this is nothing more than a fling, so hanging with her ma and pa ain’t happening. And then he spots a beautiful woman getting on a bus and chases her and hits on her on the bus while she rolls her eyes and quite understandably acts annoyed. Tomek skips an important meeting to do all this, a meeting so important, it gets him fired. Oh, and the girlfriend kicks his ass out of her apartment, so Tomek rolls his suitcase and his You’re Fired box of office whatnot up to his brother Janek’s (Rafal Zawierucha) place, and forcibly moves in. But only for one night, Janek insists, which we immediately know is a lie, because people like Tomek walk all over people like Janek, and Janek is the type of person who fusses over and talks to his large collection of potted cactuses, which is silly-comedy code for characters who generally get pushed around and end up with bootprints on their backs.

I’ve therefore identified the fatal flaw in Kiss, Kiss!: Tomek is the protagonist, a creep and a lout, and Janek, the lovable pushover, is the sidekick. These types of movies always find a way for creeps and louts to tone their shit down and for pushovers to find a little confidence, but I’m not sure the former ever happens. In fact, he’s mostly rewarded for being a total pissant. We spend some time with Janek as he acts all flustered and nervous around the local plant-store lady Klara (Agnieszka Wiedlocha), who’s a touch shy and very cute, and they clearly share some mutual affection that both are too timid to act on. But we don’t spend enough time with these borderline-weirdos, but rather, we hang out with Tomek, an irritating smirk in need of a haircut, after he gets a gig shooting a documentary about the wedding planning of the son of a Polish minister who’s about to be President. And of course, the bride is the Bus Lady, the very same eyeroller who was too couth to sock Tomek in the eye even though he deserved it.

Quite the coincidence, eh? Small world. Ola (Zofia Domalik) is the eyeroller’s name, and there’s a scene in which Tomek grabs her and kisses her even though it’s quite clear she’d rather be ripping his entrails out with her keenly manicured hands, so she slaps him. It almost slows him down, the lech, the perv, the a-hole. And we’re supposed to be on his side? Rooting for him to bust up her pending marriage, which has great potential to be a fiasco? It seems as if Ola’s marrying the son-of-a-President for reasons that aren’t really clarified by this screenplay, but suffice to say, she seems reluctant, like the love just ain’t there. This, from a woman who’s a grad student studying romantic love in literature – the irony! And she’s from a different world, a working-class woman raised by her grandmother, etc., a level of humility that clashes mightily with her future mother-in-law Patsy (Edyta Olszowka), who’s not only planning the living shit out of this extravagant giganto-wedding, but also is sex-starved and looks at Tomek like he’s a snack. So Tomek is trying to get with Ola and Janek is trying to get with Klara and Ola is maybe trying to get out of her current predicament and Tomek is trying to avoid being groped by Patsy and when the plot needs a little more drama Ola’s mafia-don dad turns up with goons and guns. Wacky!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I’m at the point where I’ve seen enough wedding-coms to assert that the genre should maybe begin and end with the Liz Taylor Father of the Bride and My Best Friend’s Wedding (with an exception or two – Crazy Rich Asians maybe, or Bridesmaids). There’s a blatant reference to The Graduate in Kiss, Kiss!, for what it’s worth. And I’ve seen a few Netflix-produced Polish rom-coms and they always seem slipshod and/or miscalculated – see Heart Parade or Squared Love.

Performance Worth Watching: Domalik shows enough screen presence to imply that this screenplay might just be a waste of time for her.  

Memorable Dialogue: Tomek justifies why he hits on any female no matter their relationship status: “Discrimination against the married women would be very impolite.”

Sex and Skin: Brief lady toplessness.

Our Take: Oof. Not many redeeming qualities in Tomek – he’s handsy, scheming and irritatingly persistent, and although these types of movies typically reward such cretinous shitheels after they change their ways, I’m pretty sure he’s the same odious person at the end of the movie as he is at the beginning. That’s a major miscalculation. He’s laughed off by other characters as a “rascal,” but he’s several dozen shades shy of being a lovable scamp. Five minutes into the movie, you’ll want to wipe that smirk off his face with battery acid, and that sentiment will hold true until the credits roll. This isn’t to criticize Kosciukiewicz’s performance; he’s just stuck in a movie that’s trying to lazily skate by without a re-write or passable direction. 

It therefore becomes increasingly apparent that the screenplay is less interested in character than in piecing together dopey scenarios, most of them weary as an old donkey lugging a battered cart across the field for the umpteenth time. Every character here is unlucky in love, wading through a series of half-written tropes, with no dramatic momentum or comic timing to be found. I also think there’s some quarter-written political satire here, evident in a scene where the President-to-be cheats at a game of musical chairs. It’s a metaphor, see. It works on a whole other level, whereas the rest of the movie operates on one singular level: sub-mediocrity. 

Our Call: Kiss, Kiss! can kiss off. SKIP IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.