Sideways, a multi Oscar-nominated picture written by Alexander Payne and Jim Jaylor, directed by Payne, and produced by Michael London, tells a truly wonderful and quite unique story of friendship, midlife crises, love, desire, one’s strengths and pitfalls… about being a man.
Altough being nominated for five Oscars in the categories Supporting Male Actor (Thomas Haden Church), Supporting Female Actor (Virginia Madsen), Directing (Alexander Payne), Best Picture (Michael London), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor) doesn’t per se point to quality (e.g. Titanic or Gladiator), this time the Academy is right. That is, almost right.
Why Thomas Haden Church and Virginia Madsen are nominated for supporting roles, yet Paul Giamatti, who delivers a superb acting job as the male lead Miles Raymond, eludes me. Church’s performance did not ring true to me most of the time, though it would be hard to pinpoint exactly why. And even though Madsen delivers throughout, her role isn’t exactly demanding. But Giamatti is excellent. His minimalistic acting — almost everything taking place in that poor-dog face of his — it fits the character perfectly.
The writing job is excellent as well, though with adaptations it is always hard to tell who the credit should go to. Especially if you haven’t read the source material, which I haven’t. Yet. There are adaptations that turn a mediocre book into a masterpiece (e.g. Fight Club), but I’m sure there are also those that do a decent job translating a fabulous novel into an equally astonishing film (though nothing comes to my mind right now… hey, it’s pretty late!). Not that that’s not a high craft, but it is not the real art that falls into the former category.
I was going to write about the story and characters, how the wonderfully ambiguous friendship between two men and their week together on a wine-tasting tour is so inspiring and moving, and how the open ending is so perfect in refraining from presenting an easy Hollywood-type love-conquers-all resolution. D’oh, now I’ve done it. Well, but it doesn’t spoil anything, for I only spoke in general terms, and the real beauty of the film lies in the characters.
If you are a living, breathing, thinking human being that loves and cherishes film as an art form that can indeed tell us about life and ourselves, go and see this movie. On the other hand, if you’re more into mind-boggling action and eye-candy and are offended by my degrading comment about Titanic because you loved it and saw it five times in the theatre and thought it was a work of genius, save your money.
