In Sideways, the stuckee is Miles (Paul Giamatti), a gloomy teacher who pursues his two passions — writing and wine — a little too vigorously. His novel spans uncounted hundreds of pages, and he’s a borderline alcoholic. So it’s a bit of a wonder that he can muster the energy to take his buddy Jack (Thomas Haden Church) on a sort of week-long bachelor party/road trip/wine-tasting spree before Jack’s wedding. Jack, it turns out, is a feckless, inconsiderate, self-obsessed ass who merrily wreaks havoc and expects that someone will save him and clean up the mess, because someone always has. Does that sound like a certain president we know?
The obvious extension of this idea — that long-faced, overly analytical, pushover Miles is like John Kerry — is so depressing that I’m not going to go there. On the other hand, Miles and Jack are friends, which Kerry and Bush certainly are not, so maybe Miles represents a Republican enabler like, say, Bob Dole, who knows his friend is a narcissistic, thoughtless jerk who’s bound to bring ruin to everyone around him… and yet poor Miles/Dole is either impotent or can’t help lying to protect the guy.
Or maybe I just need to give the politics a break.
Sideways is well written and funny (although mocking oenophiles is like shooting fish in an aged oak barrel). Unfortunately, Jack may be a dick, but he’s a lot more fun to be around than sad-sack Miles, and the movie slows considerably when he’s not on screen. Giamatti gives a wonderful performance, but relentlessly glum characters are hard to build movies around. Thomas Haden Church is a welcome surprise, considering I knew him only from his role as the dim bulb handyman on the unremittingly mediocre sitcom “Wings” — he’s got terrific comic timing and perfectly portrays the guy to whom everything’s always come easily.
More than a week after seeing it, I’m still not sure how
I feel about Sideways, not because of any profound thoughts
it stirred in me, but because I was sometimes laughing my head off and
sometimes bored. I guess the best I can say by way of an assessment,
as glib as it sounds, is that if you liked About Schmidt, you’ll
probably like Sideways. It’s the same kind of character-driven,
light-on-actual-action piece — Payne’s great at these, but it does drag
a bit.
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