Set amidst the lush California vineyards, fine wine and haute cuisine practically play supporting roles in Alexander Payne's new film "Sideways."
Although, if "Sideways" were a drink, it certainly would not be a smooth Pinot. It'd be scotch on the rocks. It'd be the drink you pour when you need to drown old flames and just get smashed.
Fortunately, the film lends more towards ill-fated whimsy than bleeding melodrama, largely thanks to a brilliantly subtle script, equally graceful direction, as well as superb comic chemistry between lead actors Miles (Jack Giamatti) and Jack (Thomas Hayden Church).
Miles and Jack's week of man bonding begins near Los Angeles, as the two old friends embark on their last week of stag adventure before sometimes-soap opera actor Jack's impending nuptials. Miles, meanwhile, is practically wetting himself in anticipation while waiting to hear back from his editor to see if his book has been accepted for publication.
The only justifiable way this effervescent playboy and the mulish intellectual could be friends is how they actually met one another: the old college roommate relationship. Their odd choice of road tripping to such a classy locale as California wine-country for Jack's last wild romps epitomizes the discordant nature of their relationship.
Yet, however else they might act with their other acquaintances, together they mysteriously serve as the other's near perfect compliment. In fact, they almost need each other.
Payne unravels their lives one close-up at a time in one shot. In one scene he cuts to one lover's hand reaching out to the other's. In another he crops a shot to include just one of Mile's eyes, downcast and blinking with regret. We forget these men are characters. They become people: these breathing, feeling, wounded bodies.
What separates them from all the other depressed movie personalities is that they make no bones about hiding their battle scars. Miles wears his divorce like a medal, frequently referencing it even in front of his new love interest, Maya (Virginia Madson).
She's part of Jack's fail safe solution to curing Miles' depression. Jack thinks all Miles needs to "snap out of it" is to get laid. Of course, Jack wants to get laid too. This joint mission sends the boys into the arms of Maya, the lovely wine connoisseur, and her sexy hog-riding friend Stephanie (Sandra Oh).
Then the gentlemen's joyride really takes off.
But like all good stories, it's when they careen off that road that their narrative proves most interesting.
The spills both Miles and Jack take are what give vitality to a film that could have easily faded away into mediocre-mid-life-crisis-genre obscurity. Their faults draw them progressively closer to us, as one would draw slowly bring a wine-glass to the mouth before drinking; that in one shot Miles caresses grapes on a vine like he would a woman's face forever endears him to us. That Jack sincerely loves women so much that he can't control himself in their presence forgives him his obvious moral shortcomings. Well, at least in the audience's eyes.
The soundtrack is twitchy and mischievous, a perfect combination of the two leads. Jazzy, with shavings of pretension and a dab of unadulterated glee, the music sounds like something taken from a professor of cartoon's private catalogue. Certainly, it clues the audience in that they are, in fact, not in Nebraska anymore, the setting of Payne's two earlier films "About Schmidt" (2002) and "Election" (1999). Instead, they've been transported to a world first envisioned by California novelist Rex Pickett.
Occasionally, the plot feels slow and the shots a bit too scenic. But then the acting takes over, in what may be one of the best ensemble pieces of the year. All anxiety over the direction of the movie becomes replaced by anxiety over the characters themselves.
Sometimes we seem to know Jack and Miles so well that it becomes painful, anguishing to watch them screw up that one more time.
At other times, that personal connection lends to the familiar laugher that comes with knowing a person's personality deeply. There are some laughs that are too genuine to be provoked by anything other than the truth. Sometimes that truth is so sad, so rundown that only by burying it into the ground with laughter can it be overcome.
