Sideways (2004)

Directed by Alexander Payne. Starring Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh, Marylouise Burke, Missy Doty, Alysia Reiner, Jessica Hecht. [R]

Exquisitely humane tale of part-time teacher/part-time writer/part-time oenophile (meaning: full-time drunken churl) Giamatti who joins best pal Church on a trip to California wine country on the eve of the latter’s wedding; there, they imbibe wine, worries, and women (waitress Madsen and pourer Oh), staggering into midlife crises with reckless embarrassment, ‘cause gosh darn it, they can’t help themselves. An intensely pleasurable seriocomedy of deeply-flawed but irresistibly human archetypes that are given the foibles and nuance to emerge as fiercely well-defined individuals, splendidly performed by the four main players. It’s heartfelt and intimate, full of poignancy and pain, but also consistently laugh-out-loud funny, which eases the sadness and charts the misery with cross-references of warmth and wisdom. The superb script by Payne and Jim Taylor won Best Adapted Screenplay from the Oscars (and just about every other awards group that year), and it’s a rare treasure—well-observed and gracefully-composed, as rich and detailed as Miles’ descriptions of the wines he samples, containing a couple of monologues that almost take the breath away. On a side note, It’s always refreshing to hear someone correctly use the phrase “champing at the bit.” Based on a novel by Rex Pickett, which had gone unpublished until a couple months prior to the film’s release.

96/100