Overall Rating
  Awesome: 65.05%
Worth A Look: 18.45%
Average: 7.28%
Pretty Bad: 4.37%
Total Crap: 4.85%
17 reviews, 104 user ratings
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| Sideways (2004) |
by Luke Pyzik
"The Pleasure of Payne"
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“Sideways” is the kind of movie you can’t imagine anyone not liking. It is so funny and in-tune with the human condition that it should win for director Alexander Payne the mainstream audience that may have been put off the quirkiness of his “Citizen Ruth,” “Election,” and “About Schmidt.” “Sideways” is Payne’s best movie, not necessarily because he has toned down the eccentricity to tell a rather straightforward story, but because its characters are so instantly recognizable and sympathetic that we admire their humanity even during their most despicable behavior. The movie is both desperately heartbreaking and terrifically inspirational, a combination only the best filmmakers know to exploit for its resemblance to how so many of us feel about life in general.Paul Giamatti stars as Miles Raymond, an alcoholic disguised as a wine connoisseur, who takes his soon to be married best friend, Jack (Thomas Haden Church), on a weeklong trip to California wine country. Miles’ plan is to eat well, drink plenty, play some golf, and tour the vineyards, but he soon learns that Jack, a former low-end television actor, plans to have an affair before his upcoming wedding. Jack encourages Miles to join the hunt, but Miles is still clinging to memories of his ex-wife, and his crush on a local waitress seems like such a fantasy that he can’t accept she might actually have a passing interest in him.
Giamatti tackles this sad sack role after last year’s headline grabbing turn as real life sad sack Harvey Pekar, and he goes a long way in proving no two sad sacks are the same. Like Pekar, Miles is a writer, but unlike Pekar, Miles can’t get anyone to publish his work, and if his artistic success could redeem him, he’ll never know it. The emergence of Giamatti as a leading man is turning out to be one of the nicest surprises in recent Hollywood memory. He made himself known to the public as Pig Vomit in Howard Stern’s “Private Parts” and quickly became a viable character actor that audiences instantly recognized as “that guy.” If there was any doubt Giamatti could carry an entire movie after “American Splendor,” he proves in “Sideways” that he is the Denzel Washington of short, awkward white guys.
In a bit of truly courageous casting, Thomas Haden Church (yes, that is Lloyd the mechanic from “Wings”) takes on the main supporting role as Miles best friend, Jack. If ever there was an actor about to be erased from the public consciousness it was Church, but he famously beat out the likes of George Clooney for this role, and he makes the most of the opportunity. Jack is the kind of middle-aged guy who still walks with the swagger of a college student and talks in lingo just out of date enough to give him away. His former success as an actor seems to have given him enough confidence to be attractive to beautiful women, and his addiction to cheating is no less potent than Miles’ addiction to alcohol.
Back in wine country, Jack is able to initiate conversation between Miles and Maya (Virginia Madsen), the waitress he has long admired, and Jack strikes up a relationship with Maya’s sexy friend, Stephanie (Sandra Oh). When the foursome goes out on a double date and end up back at Stephanie’s house, Jack and Stephanie are quick to close the deal physically, while Miles and Maya connect over a shared love for wine. The scene between Miles and Maya is one of the best you’re likely to see all year. The writing, direction, and acting all come from an understanding of the awkwardness of reality, and even as Miles makes a long monologue about his reasons for loving Pinot, it makes sense that a man as lonely and depressed as he is would make such an obvious metaphor as a last-ditch effort to reach out to a woman he can see himself loving. And it also makes sense that even when she responds in the best possible way, his pain will not let him act gracefully on his instincts.
Over the course of the week, Jack and Stephanie become much closer than we could anticipate, and Miles finds himself alone once again. The plot progresses not out of a need to fill a quota for laughs or romance, but out of the organic inevitabilities of the characters’ flawed personalities. We see the depths of Miles and Jack’s addictions in scenes both funny and tragic, and even as we laugh at the outlandish results of their foibles, so to do we despair at the happiness that seems just out of their reach.The movie ends correctly on an ambiguous note, just after Miles runs into his ex-wife in a scene that will surely break the heart of anyone who has had the misfortune of seeing a former partner with another person. The movie does us a service by ending with a ray of hope, though not giving us everything we want to know. What’s behind that door? The answer will be different depending on your own outlook. I think Harvey Pekar would watch this movie and say that nothing’s behind the door, but Miles … Well, he’s the one knocking on it, isn’t he?
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=10451&reviewer=381
originally posted: 11/19/04 08:11:56
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Chicago Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Chicago Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Starz Denver Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Starz Denver Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Toronto Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Toronto Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 New York Film Festival. For more in the 2004 New York Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
22-Oct-2004 (R)
DVD: 05-Apr-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
26-Jan-2005
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