Sideways (DVD)

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The first time I saw "Sideways," the 2004 film from writer-director Alexander Payne, was at a theater because a friend had seen it the week before and told how much he enjoyed it. I also went to see it because I liked two of Payne's previous films, "About Schmidt" and "Election." And I went to see it because I had heard it was set in California's wine country, and I looked forward to enjoying the familiar setting.

When I returned home from the show, I wrote up some preliminary notes preparatory for a DVD review I knew I'd eventually be writing. I liked the film. I thought it was cute and sweet and reasonably clever. Then, it was a like a wave building in the distance. I couldn't avoid reading other people's reviews and hearing from other critics, and I began seeing "Sideways" again and again on lists of best films of the year. By the end of December, the movie was number one on my local newspaper's "Critical Consensus" roster and had scored an amazing 96% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes. To say I was flabbergasted by all the acclaim it received would be an understatement.

Now, don't get me wrong. As I said, I liked "Sideways." I hope the potential viewer's enthusiasm for renting or buying the film on DVD will not be dampened by my comments. Let's just say that my own reactions may serve to temper some of the numerous outpourings of ecstasy heaped upon the film by other admirers.

The story recounts the misadventures of two middle-aged friends, pals since college, on a weeklong fling in the wine country. Miles (Paul Giamatti) is an eighth-grade English teacher, a self-styled wine connoisseur, and an unpublished author. He's bored with his job, he's lonely and divorced, he's anxious about getting his first book in print, and he behaves alternately like a pretentious, cerebral snob and an adolescent whiner. His best friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church) is a part-time actor. He's been in a soap opera and a few TV commercials, so people think they sort of recognize him without actually being able to place him. He's about to be married in a week's time and wants to go on one last spree before settling down.

The two men are obviously facing a midlife crisis and head off on a road trip together to enjoy some much-needed relaxation, to taste some fine wines, to play some golf, to bond, and to find themselves. Well, Miles wants to find himself; Jack just wants to romance as many women as he can fit into his final few days of freedom. Inasmuch as Miles is the smaller and brighter of the two men and Jack is the bigger and more brainless, they reminded me a good deal of George and Lennie in John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men," with Miles continually having to get Jack out of trouble. The difference is in the lighter tone of "Sideways" and its less memorable characters.

I liked "Sideways" for its almost always sparkling dialogue. The repartee seemed on the one hand honest and realistic, while on the other hand often more alert and witty than you'd hear in real life. Miles says he's "a thumbprint on the window of a skyscraper." Such lines recall those sophisticated comedies of the thirties and forties, yet they maintain an air of screwball humor as well. I liked the movie's subtleties, too. The guys stop in at a place that Miles finds particularly commercial and repellent, the name of which is Frass Winery. The word "frass" means insect excrement. And while in their motel room, the fellows are watching "The Grapes of Wrath" on TV. More Steinbeck; a cute touch. The movie makes for an engaging listen, even if you're not actually watching it. I wonder if it wouldn't have made a good radio play in the old days.

I liked the story's many metaphors equating wine with life. Such comparisons may seem tired and clichéd, but the gimmick generally worked and gave the film a kind of elegance that meshed well in counterpoint with some of its boisterous temper. Miles tells us, for instance, that he likes Pinot Noir because "it's thin-skinned, temperamental; it's not a survivor like Cabernet.... Pinot needs constant care and attention." As does Miles. I liked Miles's slow, hesitant relationship with Maya, a woman he meets on the trip. I liked the film's lush cinematography and the beauty of its wine-country locales. And I liked the movie's sense of fun in most of its quirky episodes, starting with the tangent of Miles's mother at the very beginning. The movie has an abundance of high energy and good spirits and seldom takes itself too seriously, except toward the very end.

Most important, I liked the film's supporting players, Virginia Madsen as the aforementioned Maya, a server in a restaurant, and Sandra Oh as Stephanie, a hostess in a winery. They are a couple of women the fellows meet and take up with on their journey. Madsen was robbed in her Supporting Oscar bid, portraying her character as persusasively as anything I saw on screen last year. She is brilliant, defining a character who is every bit the intellectual match of the often pathetic Miles and by far more composed and eloquent than he is. Likewise, Ms. Oh's character is well drawn, exuberant in her ardent lust for life and love.

I wish I could say I liked everything about "Sideways," but I didn't, and my reservations have been nagging me ever since watching it. Foremost, I found little to admire in either of the main characters, with whom we are supposed to sympathize as loveable losers. Of course, we don't always have to admire people in movies; often, we're expected to learn from their tragic flaws. But I could not work up much interest for the two men in this story. Jack is simply a big, dumb, womanizing lug who cares not a whit for the feelings of his fiancée or the women he woos. He's just out for a good time and has little regard for anyone who might get hurt in the process. But I suppose we can forgive him for being an empty-headed jerk; he doesn't appear capable of anything but the simplest thought.

The sad-sack Miles, however, is another story. He views himself as a failure for not having published a book. He looks upon his life as a lowly English teacher as somehow demeaning, humiliating to his presumed mental superiority to most everyone else. As an English teacher myself for over thirty-eight years before retiring, I wondered as I was watching the film how many countless teachers worldwide it was offending. I can understand the filmmakers' desire to show us how misguided Miles's thinking is, but, in fact, the film never argues against Miles's proposition directly. It only suggests that Miles may not realize how much he's really got going for him because he's so blinded by his divorce and the failure of his book to get published. This was not enough to encourage my sympathy for him. Worse, Miles is basically a morose lush. His wallowing in self-pity and despair leads not so much to his tasting and savoring new wines as to gulping down bottles of the stuff until by the end of each night he's in a stupor.