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Miles Away
Giamatti gives Sideways its distinct bouquet
by Paige M. Travis
Miles is the kind of friend you humor, suffer and occasionally enjoy. His friend Jack is a similar kind of pal, but in a different way. Their complex friendship is the basis for Sideways, a road-trip, buddy movie for the middle-aged set.
Miles (Paul Giamatti) is an eighth-grade English teacher, an aspiring author, a wine connoisseur; but he’s also a devout pessimist who pitches adolescent fits, steals money from his elderly mother, and avoids self-analysis.
Jack (Thomas Haden Church) is a vaguely recognizable TV actor about to marry a lovely young Armenian woman. Where Miles savors the delicacies of wine and food—and belabors his every move with women—Jack is indiscriminate as a gourmand and a womanizer. And he’s always smiling like a cat who ate the canary.
These men—mildly irritating, wholly flawed, and endearing and familiar for those very reasons—are just the kind of characters director Alexander Payne loves to focus his attention upon. Jack Nicholson embodied one of these men—of the old, crotchety variety—in Payne’s 2002 About Schmidt, which won two Golden Globes and was nominated for as many Oscars. In Miles and Jack, Payne once again shows us the inner workings of men’s hearts and minds. And although the story itself gets eventually gets sidetracked, the actors’ portrayals of these flawed humans is the film’s most redeeming trait.
Miles’ wedding gift to Jack is a weeklong jaunt into Miles’ stomping ground: the wine country just outside San Diego. Like a teenager looking at spring break, Jack is raring to go. He doesn’t have cold feet as much as a pre-wedding itch for tomfoolery. At first he projects those motives on the perennially uptight Miles, who isn’t back in the dating game a year after his divorce. Then it becomes clear that Jack is eager for one last fling, and he demands that Miles not ruin his plans, either through his actions or his disapproval. “Be the guy you were before the tailspin,” says Jack. “No going to the dark side.” Out of deference to his friend, or just sheer weakness, Miles reluctantly follows Jack’s lead—straight into a double date with Maya, a waitress at a restaurant Miles has frequented in previous visits, and Stephanie, a wine-pourer at a nearby winery.
Maya (Virginia Madsen) is intellectual and sexy, and she clearly digs Miles. They connect over a shared experience of wine—its personality, flavor, subtlety; their conversations are heavy with metaphors about the sensitivity and complexity of grapes. Of pinot noir, a wine Miles finds particularly fascinating, he says, “It’s not a survivor like Cabernet that can grow anywhere and thrive even when neglected. Pinot needs constant care and attention.” This kind of talk is like Spanish fly for Maya, whose eyes only get more starry. Or maybe that’s the five bottles of wine they polish off at dinner....
Stephanie (Sandra Oh) is an impetuous firebrand—totally up Jack’s alley. Jack and Stephanie are instantly flirting and touching, while Maya and Miles tentatively make sweet, hesitant inroads to intimacy. Of course, nothing is said about Jack’s impending marriage, and that lie leads to the complete crumbling of the road trip and its burgeoning relationships.
The other star of Sideways is the wine itself. Bottle after bottle is sipped with relish or guzzled with impunity (the latter in acknowledgement that Miles uses wine’s alcoholic effects as both crutch and succor). Wine aficionados will recognize Miles’ nerdy obsession, and even novice wine lovers will feel thirsty.
In Payne’s desire to wrap up the handful of plot lines he sets in motion, Sideways gets sidetracked after its climax. The story focuses too much on Jack and what turns out to be his unquenchable appetite for women. Church (who played the mechanic on TV’s Wings but hasn’t been seen much since) is perfect in the part of the marginal actor, but it’s Giamatti, with his hangdog looks and underdog spirit, the viewer roots for most. His pessimism and tendency to flip out is infuriating, but by the end of the film he seems to have learned from Jack and Maya to take more chances and savor life, regardless of its vintage.
November 24, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 48
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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