The Guardian, UK
Jan 28 2005
Sideways
*****
Cert 15
Peter Bradshaw
‘Bathed in the solvent of exquisite sadness’: Sideways
New classics of American cinema don’t come along that often, so grab
this one with both hands. It’s an occasion for the singing of
hosannas from the roof of every cinema. Director Alexander Payne has
already given us two gems with Election and About Schmidt. This
glorious, bittersweet comedy of male friendship and midlife crisis is
even better. It’s something to be compared with John Cassavetes or
Hal Ashby or Woody Allen’s Annie Hall; a particular kind of
freewheeling film-making that hasn’t surfaced for decades.
Sideways is beautifully written, terrifically acted; it is paced and
constructed with such understated mastery that it is a sort of
miracle. The observations are pitilessly exact and meshed with
impeccably executed sight gags and funny lines, and everything is
bathed in the solvent of exquisite sadness. Yet its gentleness and
humanity do not preclude a mule-kick of emotional power. Audiences at
the screenings where I have been present may have heard something
like a fusillade of gunshots from the auditorium; it was the sound of
my heart breaking into a thousand pieces.
Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church give the performances of their
lives, complemented by two outstanding female leads: Sandra Oh and
Virginia Madsen. Giamatti is Miles, the divorced English teacher and
would-be novelist well into his 40s, who is staring failure full in
the face. Church plays his buddy and old college roommate Jack: a
handsome-ish actor and incorrigible “pussyhound” whose career washed
up after a couple of TV shows 10 years before.
With many a suppressed bachelor’s misgiving, he is about to get
married, and acquire some rich Armenian-American in-laws who want him
to leave showbusiness and come in with them in their fabulously
lucrative property business. Jack is still in the process of kidding
himself that he can do that and still keep the door open to getting
back into movies. For his part, Miles is kidding himself that his
ex-wife might still want to make another go of it.
The pair of them, deep in denial about the way their lives are
turning out, go on a road trip. It is Miles’s “wedding gift” to Jack:
he will take him on a tour of the Californian wine country, and teach
him about the passion for wine that has taken over his life.
Secretly, he is hoping for a little male bonding to salve his
wretched loneliness. But all Jack is hoping for is some bedroom
action with local women before he has to tie the knot – and Miles
cloaks his desolate feelings of betrayal with righteous disgust. All
he can do to manage his despair is concentrate on the new love of his
life: wine.
Jonathan Nossiter’s documentary Mondovino was recently much praised
for its insights into the globo-Californian wine business; but for
me, Sideways says more on the subject in five minutes than Nossiter
managed in two hours. Miles loves pontificating at tastings, and
comes up with the most uproarious wine-snobbisms since James
Thurber’s famous line: “It’s a naive domestic burgundy, but I think
you’ll be amused by its presumption.” Miles fastidiously sips a
Cabernet and pronounces it: “Quaffable but far from transcendent.” To
Jack’s bemusement, he rolls another vintage around his palate and
claims to detect hints of strawberry, asparagus, and Dutch Edam. “The
strawberries … yeah … ” agrees Jack, having earnestly tasted it
himself, ” … but not the cheese.” Miles identifies with Pinot grape
because it’s delicate and sensitive like him, but it’s only when he
meets beautiful, divorced Maya – an excellent performance from
Virginia Madsen – that he finds a kindred wine-loving spirit and
someone who might redeem his sorry life.
Some of the brilliance of Payne’s film is that he presents Miles’s
passion for wine with no obvious signposting as to what we should
think about it, and lets an awful thought dawn unassisted. Miles’s
oenophilia might simply be a very elaborate way of dressing up the
banal problem of alcoholism. Two banal problems, if you count
incipient depression. Miles has created a complete and complex
culture in which his drinking can be made to seem like something with
status. And now that his buddy is getting married and leaving him
alone in his wretched world of singledom, he somehow needs Jack’s
benediction and understanding of his new monkish vocation for
drinking away what remains of his life.
Yet it is a measure of the humanity and sympathy of this film that
this explanation would not be entirely fair. Poor, battered Miles –
devastated by the failure of his marriage and the rejection of his
novel – has at least found a genuine passion. There is an
extraordinary moment when, stunned by the news that his ex-wife has
in fact remarried, Miles can find comfort only in stroking grapes: a
bizarre image that Payne somehow makes sad and irresistibly funny at
once.
The sadness is balanced with wonderfully observed comedy as Jack
embarks on a crazy affair with Stephanie (Sandra Oh), a pourer from
one of the wineries, and finally has a one-night stand with a diner
waitress whose husband makes an unwelcome appearance. The upshot is a
scene of hilarious, nail-biting tension.
Alexander Payne has raised his game very satisfyingly with this film,
taking his familiar preoccupation with male menopausal angst and
giving it a new gentleness, richness and maturity. Sideways now has
five Oscar nominations: including one for best picture. It is light
years ahead of the preening, pumped-up competitors in this category
(The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Million Dollar Baby and Ray). We can
only hope.