THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG-DISTANCE WRITER.
Sideways, the next in Director Alexander Payne's growing contribution to American cinema (Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt), has a thin plot stretched out with multiple sight gags. But it has a kind heart. It's the latter that carries the film and brushes over its weaknesses—none of which are serious enough unless you're perhaps Robert McKee. Payne's bailiwick is the underside of America, and one feels he's more interested in the slices of Americana he puts on the screen rather than the story he's telling.
The logline: Two forty-something pals hit the California wine trail for one last week of freedom before one of them gets married.
Paul Giamatti, the new American hangdog with tired eyes and perpetual frown, plays Miles Raymond, a loser in the worst eyes of all—his own. Miles is a failed and failing writer infected with the hope he just might sell his most recent unwieldy novel. He keeps food on the table by teaching high school English. (Giamatti's characterization is so spot on, writers may find this too painful to watch. But then again I'm forgetting the sado-masochistic fever under which most writers ail. So go ahead, ignore this warning and view away). To boot, Miles is devastated by a recent divorce. He is, however, not without better qualities. Well read, yes, but also a wine connoisseur with sincere but definitive tastes.
His old college roommate, Jack Lopate (Thomas Haden Church), is seemingly an escapee from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, dude, and a sexual sociopath. In other words, a fourteen-year old in an adult's body. Jack, an actor, played a doctor on a soap many moons ago and now is relegated to doing commercials, ‘nationals' when he can get them. He's about to marry into a rich, prosperous family. Church plays Jack a bit over the top and you might find yourself asking how could anyone be so stupid. You will find yourself asking why the fiancée and her family don't ask the same thing.
Miles takes Jack for a tour through Napa wine country a week before Jack's wedding. Miles is intent on visiting his favourite wineries and restaurants and playing a bit of golf. Jack's agenda is to get them both laid. After a lot of vino gets sniffed, swilled, tasted, drunk and pontificated upon, Jack gets his wish. He beds down a walk-on-the-wild side wine pourer Stephanie (Sandra Oh), whom he falls in love with. Miles knows better. He's seen this act before. The real drama is whether Miles will get up the gumption to initiate romance with a waitress, Maya (Virginia Madsen), who is his intellectual equal. Unlike Jack, Miles is not one to profess love to get a woman into bed, not that it would have worked in this case anyway. We're rooting for Miles and Maya and even though it's hard to imagine Miles having sex (like say, your parents), they have a night of bliss, thankfully off screen.
Then the guys' duplicity comes to light. Jack, as mentioned is betrothed, and the toasting they've been doing for Miles' about-to-be-published novel is a bit premature. Jack gets the beating he deserves, brutally administered with a motor cycle helmet by Stephanie—a graphic example of a woman scorned. Miles' wounds are less visible but far deeper.
I can't tell you about my favourite scene—a phone call between Miles and his literary agent—because it would spoil things, but because of its ‘truth' it overcomes all the other faults in the script.
And what are those faults? A: Arguably, (you can hear Robert McKee doing the arguing), the biggest is that the two main characters don't change from the first to the final scene, or ‘no arc' as they say in the biz. B: There are too many sight gags and too much business setting them up. The final one of these—perhaps the longest—is wholly superfluous and in extremely poor taste. C: The huge physical, personal and emotional discrepancy between Miles and Jack is a sight gag in itself and requires suspended belief. (I allow one suspended belief per film before I start frothing at the mouth and this was it.) D: The making of Pinot Gris as a metaphor for life sounded romantic at first, but in reality is just a whine.
And lastly, why are men repeatedly mistaken—I assume Payne included, due to the ending—that a good woman will solve everything?
