“Sideways”
Directed by Alexander Payne
Destinta
In the collector’s edition DVD introduction to Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita,” Alexander Payne says “Often when exposed to great art for the first time one is unsure quite what to make of it…I only began to understand (‘La Dolce Vita’) after watching more Fellini.” I wouldn’t consider “Sideways” great art, and I definitely wouldn’t compare it to Fellini, but when I sat down to write this review, I didn’t know what to make of it.
Like Payne suggests, I found it useful to compare it to his other films. “Sideways” is a combination of “Election” and “About Schmidt,” and this is why “Sideways” can be both silly and up for an Oscar. Personally, I hated “About Schmidt.” Maybe Payne made the film boring in order to capture Schmidt’s boring personality. I don’t know. It attempted to balance comedy and drama but at times I found the jokes impossible to laugh at without feeling slightly awkward. “Election,” on the other hand, was extremely entertaining and funny, full of unexpected moments and gags. “About Schmidt” was nomiated for an Oscar because of Nicholson and because it fit into the Oscar-nomination mold while “Election” wasn’t because it lacked respectable actors and was seen as more of a teen comedy. “Sideways” incorporates the gags of “Election” and the drama of “About Schmidt,” making it both hilarious and Oscar-material.
The moments where “Sideways” fails are those in which it takes itself a little too seriously. Stylistically, Payne does this when the two leading men are at the vineyards in a split screen musical montage, the most ridiculous of which captures Jack’s (Thomas Haden Church) hand outside a window. My biggest fear when going to see this movie was that it would be like “Lost in Translation,” a movie that tried too hard to be interesting and appealed to American audiences with a strange concept of what it means to be a “foreign film.” Without the split screen, “Sideways” would have been much better.
Narratively, this movie also makes a few bad moves. For example, when Miles (Paul Giamatti) and Maya (Virginia Madsen) talk symbolically about wine-comparing it to people and life-as dramatic music plays in the background, I couldn’t help but feel slightly uncomfortable. It just didn’t fit into the rest of the film. Then, in the scene where Jack breaks down crying, I and maybe one other person laughed while others sat in the theater confused. Was it supposed to be genuine? And yet, when you hear people qualify the Oscar nomination, they seem to get hung up on these scenes in the film, where drama dominates. These scenes may be why “Sideways” is nominated, but it certainly isn’t the reason “Sideways” works. It works because of the strange situations, funny lines, and the two leading men-in particular particular Paul Giamatti. Maybe on a second viewing I will appreciate the drama in this film, but for now, I can appreciate it only as a comedy. A really good one.
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