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Sideways (2004) – Movie Review
By Robert L. Jones | November 25, 2004
Paul Giamatti and Virginia Madsen in Alexander Payne's "Sideways"
Bacchanalia
[xrr rating=4/5]
Sideways. Starring Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh, Marylousie Burke, Jessica Hecht, Missy Doty, M.C. Gainey, Alysia Reiner, Shake Toukhmanian, and Duke Moosekian. Cinematography by Phedon Papamichael, A.S.C. Edited by Kevin Tent, A.C.E. Music by Rolfe Kent. Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor. Based on the novel by Rex Pickett. Directed by Alexander Payne. (Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2005, Color, 126 minutes. MPAA Rating: R.)
As a rule I dislike most “independent” films, especially since that moniker has become a synonym for pathological dependence on Robert Redford. The main reason I avoid them is because so many are pretentious, full of affectation, forced dialogue, and self-conscious camerawork. Too many “serious” filmmakers these days still haven’t mentally left film school.
Fortunately, independent screenwriter/director Alexander Payne is not one of those. With Sideways, he and co-screenwriter Jim Taylor have crafted a genuinely funny, sad, and mad odyssey through California’s wine country.
Sideways follows a pair of mismatched buddies—has-been actor Jack (Thomas Haden Church) and his never-was novelist pal, Miles—on a romp during Jack’s last week of freedom before marrying up. Miles, played bittersweet and sour by gifted character actor Paul Giamatti, is a touchy bundle of overwrought nerves, unable to unwind from his depression even as he attempts to show Jack a good time. The two sojourn through vineyards around Solvang and Buellton in northern California, tasting wines and golfing, but Jack is much more interested in trying to nail any female that happens his way, and offers to get Miles laid.
The pair soon happens across a couple of sirens in the wine and hospitality business, waitress Maya (the ever-gorgeous and talented Virginia Madsen) and pourer Stephanie (Sandra Oh) and extroverted Jack sets the four up for a double date. It is interesting watching the two couples, how likes attract. Jack, who perpetually lives in his 1970s tropical shirts, immediately hits it off with born-to-be-wild Stephanie, and make like a couple of rabbits in no time. Love and lust, though, have not been as kind to Miles and Maya, who at first approach each other warily, tentatively. Their connection is less animal, more cerebral.
At first (despite Jack’s coaxing and pushing Maya onto him), Miles is hesitant to accept her, whom he off-handedly dismisses because she’s a waitress, but at Stephanie’s house, the two find they both indeed have a passion for fine wines.
There is a beautifully sublime scene, in which Giamatti and Madsen discuss their shared love of wines. The dialogue is economical and intelligent, yet sensually evocative: For through their ostensible conversations about pinot grapes and wine tasting, the viewer is given a glimpse into their souls. Their exchange is heartfelt, and is the most understated romantic scene I’ve experienced since Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney’s contemplation of the sea in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947). For a brief moment, Miles and Maya have made a connection, which just as fleetingly dissipates. The moment is lost, yet Payne communicates visually in the next few shots that their connection still remains, that it indeed has cemented an implicit bond of understanding and affection between them.
Unfortunately, we learn that Stephanie has fallen for Jack, and fallen hard. At this point, the relationship between Miles and Jack changes as well: In the movie’s opening scenes, Jack was clearly in charge emotionally, a big brother warning Miles not to ruin their fun with his depressive bouts.
But as it becomes clear that Jack’s lustful behavior is opening Stephanie up for a lot of emotional pain, Miles emerges as the more mature of the two, trying to communicate to the slower-witted Jack that his devil-may-care attitude is amoral and potentially hurtful.
This is a great movie (and it tries to be a movie, not a film) which takes its characters—but never itself—seriously. The acting doesn’t even seem like acting, it’s so natural and unforced. Madsen is brilliant, and her delivery of the speech about how she came to have a passion for wine, how every bottle is breathing with life coursing through its veins, is direct (but in an subtle way) and makes a deep impact. Sandra Oh is sexy and sultry—I love her line, “I need to be spanked!” It has a Lauren Bacall quality to it. She’s just as equally convincing when she rages at Jack for leading her on. Church is perfectly cast as the California surfer-boy actor type who never grew up. Viewers will also recognize a pair of Payne regulars Phil Reeves (Election and About Schmidt) and M.C. Gainey who played biker vet Harlan in Citizen Ruth in the cast as well, the latter in a bizarre and hilarious scene in which Miles tries to retrieve Jack’s lost wallet.
But, this movie is Giamatti’s. I’ve admired his acting ever since I saw him as Howard Stern’s hyper and vengeful boss in Private Parts, and felt sorry for his pearls-before-swine performance in Duets, in which he and Andre Braugher were the only good things about that dreadfully bad movie.
In Sideways, Giamatti comes across as thoroughly believable. He manages to even infuse his manic episodes with a light comedic touch. He’s at times surly, at others serious, but never hackneyed. The scene that made the deepest impression was near the end of the movie, in which he meets his ex-wife, learning that she’s pregnant by her new trophy husband, appropriately named “Ken.” Watching him trying to keep a stiff upper lip was painful, because Miles is the kind who wears his heart on his sleeve. Yet, I was inwardly cheering for him, knowing the triumph of emotional control it was for him. There was never a trace of what David Mamet calls “Hollywood huff acting” about his performance—Giamatti never resorted to sighs, grunts, and groans to impart what his character was going through, but simply acted his way through it, convincingly and powerfully.
With Sideways, Alexander Payne has carved a niche for himself as the master of the cynical comedy. With this movie, along with Citizen Ruth, Election, and About Schmidt, he has swerved into being the next Billy Wilder. However, Payne has earned those laurels on his own, defining his genre through his own comedic and dramatic vision. He never apes Wilder, unlike the Coen Brothers, who’ve self-consciously fashioned themselves as Preston Sturges’s heirs.
One quality Payne’s movies have in common with Wilder’s is that their endings leave room for hope. Some deride these as typical Hollywood happy endings. Yet, Payne grants his protagonists a measure of redemption (except for eternal little man Jim McAllister in Election). Whether these endings are predictable or seen by some pessimists as sappy is not the point. I see it, rather, as sort of a confirmation that man’s lot in life is not misery. That misery—not happiness—ought to be the aberration is Payne’s message. Like Wilder, he is indeed a cynic. But, a cynic is just a frustrated idealist.
Sideways is in limited release, so I had to wait a month for it to come to San Antonio to see it. But, like a fine vintage bottle of wine, it was well worth the wait. It is indeed a movie to savor, again and again.
Robert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in Black & White Magazine, Entrepreneur, Hoy! New York, the New York Post, RCA Victor (Japan), Scene in San Antonio, Spirit Magazine (Canada), Top Producer, and the Trenton Times. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of The New Individualist.
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