Alexander Payne has proved himself to be able to direct a variety of films in the same genre. Election was a satire made to look like a teen comedy, About Schmidt was an old-person-comes-to-terms movie, and Sideways is a mid-life crisis movie. All three are similar in theme, but especially Schmidt and Sideways. They're almost the same movie, with an age difference of about 20 years. Both juggle comedy and drama effectively, but Sideways is funnier, sadder, and hit closer to home than Schmidt did for me.
Miles (Paul Giamatti) takes his friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church) off on a week-long road trip right before Jack's marriage to Christine (Alysia Reiner). Miles is a high school English teacher and a struggling writer who's still depressed about his divorce two years earlier. Jack is a formerly famous actor reduced to doing voice overs in car commercials. They travel north in California, into wine country, as Miles is a pretentious wine enthusiast. They meet Maya (Virginia Madsen) and Stephanie (Sandra Oh) up there, and respectively, Miles and Jack try to hit it off with them. Jack is more successful, which puts his marriage in jeopardy. They look at their lives while up there, as it puts the audience in various stages of laughter and tears.
Sideways is obviously more personal to 43-year-old Payne than Schmidt or Election, and it shows. It bares the honest truth about humanity. Although Miles and Jack seem like completely total opposites, they're both the same on the inside-they're both Everymen. Payne deals with this in not only a mature manner, but also with a sympathetic eye. He doesn't allow Miles to become an down-and-out loser (like, say, Philip Seymour Hoffman in every movie he's in), nor does he allow Jack to be this total soul-less tail-chaser. The characters are unrealistic enough to have us believe that something like the movie could happen, but also grounded in reality. When movies try to have this down-to-earth "realism", they often fail. But since Sideways had characters who weren't like us (but we were able to relate to them), it made the movie easier to enjoy and like.
It also helps that the movie is pretty damn funny. Due to Miles's pretentiousness re: wine, the movie mocks people like that, but also shows the "different strokes for different folks" approach-what Miles likes is different from what Jack likes, and neither can grasp that concept, leading into some very funny dialogue. I noticed that the audience laughed at times when the movie wasn't funny. Why that is, I don't know, but the movie is funny anyway. And something that I'm sure surprised much of the audience is the sex between two people who you normally wouldn't see having sex on films. I suppose it's like the "shock" of Kathy Bates in Schmidt, but I suppose it's almost brave of Payne to show these things on film, stuff that no one else would.
Giamatti is simply spectacular in his trademark role of a schlub (see also: American Splendor). He expresses his emotions like a pro. Church is also pretty good, but I think the standout is Oh. She got the part from being married to Payne, but she does a breakout job here, and it seems like she has a lot of opportunities now to become a star along the ranks of Giamatti (Splendor really shot Giamatti up). All in all, Sideways is a great film-something for everyone. The soundtrack, too, is pretty great, one worth buying. I'd recommend it to anyone, really. For those who liked Schmidt, especially, it's a movie for them.
My rating: 9/10
Rated R for language, some strong sexual content and nudity.
Miles (Paul Giamatti) takes his friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church) off on a week-long road trip right before Jack's marriage to Christine (Alysia Reiner). Miles is a high school English teacher and a struggling writer who's still depressed about his divorce two years earlier. Jack is a formerly famous actor reduced to doing voice overs in car commercials. They travel north in California, into wine country, as Miles is a pretentious wine enthusiast. They meet Maya (Virginia Madsen) and Stephanie (Sandra Oh) up there, and respectively, Miles and Jack try to hit it off with them. Jack is more successful, which puts his marriage in jeopardy. They look at their lives while up there, as it puts the audience in various stages of laughter and tears.
Sideways is obviously more personal to 43-year-old Payne than Schmidt or Election, and it shows. It bares the honest truth about humanity. Although Miles and Jack seem like completely total opposites, they're both the same on the inside-they're both Everymen. Payne deals with this in not only a mature manner, but also with a sympathetic eye. He doesn't allow Miles to become an down-and-out loser (like, say, Philip Seymour Hoffman in every movie he's in), nor does he allow Jack to be this total soul-less tail-chaser. The characters are unrealistic enough to have us believe that something like the movie could happen, but also grounded in reality. When movies try to have this down-to-earth "realism", they often fail. But since Sideways had characters who weren't like us (but we were able to relate to them), it made the movie easier to enjoy and like.
It also helps that the movie is pretty damn funny. Due to Miles's pretentiousness re: wine, the movie mocks people like that, but also shows the "different strokes for different folks" approach-what Miles likes is different from what Jack likes, and neither can grasp that concept, leading into some very funny dialogue. I noticed that the audience laughed at times when the movie wasn't funny. Why that is, I don't know, but the movie is funny anyway. And something that I'm sure surprised much of the audience is the sex between two people who you normally wouldn't see having sex on films. I suppose it's like the "shock" of Kathy Bates in Schmidt, but I suppose it's almost brave of Payne to show these things on film, stuff that no one else would.
Giamatti is simply spectacular in his trademark role of a schlub (see also: American Splendor). He expresses his emotions like a pro. Church is also pretty good, but I think the standout is Oh. She got the part from being married to Payne, but she does a breakout job here, and it seems like she has a lot of opportunities now to become a star along the ranks of Giamatti (Splendor really shot Giamatti up). All in all, Sideways is a great film-something for everyone. The soundtrack, too, is pretty great, one worth buying. I'd recommend it to anyone, really. For those who liked Schmidt, especially, it's a movie for them.
My rating: 9/10
Rated R for language, some strong sexual content and nudity.