In "The Last Kiss," Kim, played by Rachel Bilson, and Michael, played by Zach Braff, struggle to adapt to adulthood.

"The Last Kiss" is a good movie.

Sounds like a positive statement, right? And it is. The romantic-relationship comedy has uniformly good performances and almost uniformly good dialogue.

Trouble is, you can tell it's straining to be more than good. If movies were people, you would describe "The Last Kiss" as an overly earnest college student whose self-esteem requires an excellent grade, and not just a good one.

Paul Haggis, who directed and co-wrote the Oscar-winning "Crash," here provides a screenplay that takes a long time to reveal that forgiveness is an essential part of any relationship. Tony Goldwyn, who directed the excellent "A Walk on the Moon" and is still remembered for his performance as the false friend in "Ghost," helms "The Last Kiss."

Still at least a part-time actor, Goldwyn is definitely an actor-friendly director. That's a good thing, since, for many, "The Last Kiss" is simply "the new Zach Braff movie."

Braff, auteur of the popular "Garden State" and star of television's "Scrubs," gives an engaging performance as weak-willed protagonist, Michael.

Michael's girlfriend Jenna (Jacinda Barrett) is pregnant, and marriage is in the works. But Michael has a roving eye and, when pursued by aggressive college student Kim (Rachel Bilson of "The O.C."), he protests loudly before succumbing. His dallying leads to shouting matches with both Jenna and Kim, and that amounts to a lot of shouting for the audiences' nerves.

Meanwhile, Jenna's pregnancy has led her self-centered mother, Anna (Blythe Danner), to leave her father, Stephen (Tom Wilkinson), a preoccupied psychiatrist. They resolve their problem with less high-voltage clamor than Michael and Jenna.

Haggis' screenplay sometimes relies on too many reflex laughs. When Anna interrupts Stephen's session with a patient, the scene is too calculated to be effective. As is the norm for this type of movie, Michael has lifelong buddies, each with a different set of problems. To its credit, the movie doesn't tie up everything into tidy packages.

Barrett invests Jenna with depth and charm, while Bilson's Kim emerges as someone deeper than a first impression of the character would suggest. Casey Affleck movingly plays the most touching of Michael's buds, a young husband and father in a no-win situation.

Danner, whose fine comic work in "Meet the Parents" never got its deserved attention, registers a wide range of emotions as the competitive Anna, while Wilkinson says much with a few profound facial expressions.

"The Last Kiss" is uneven, but it tries hard. It's an upfront attack that frequently works.

<b>TITLE:</b> "The Last Kiss"<b>DIRECTOR: </b>Tony Goldwyn<b>CAST: </b>Zach Braff, Jacinda Barrett, Tom Wilkinson, Blythe Danner<b>RATED: </b>R (sexuality, nudity and language)<b>GRADE: </b>3 Stars (out of 5)