Sideways - 2004
Director: Alexander Payne
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church
The level of dysfunction that can be found in Sideways is about on par with the level
of dysfunction my feelings have about this movie. It’s not as simple as an
outstretched sideways thumb teetering between “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” though.
It’s more “do I praise this film for its complex character study and
exceptional execution of two absolutely different paradigms colliding and
finding a disturbing understanding of each other on neutral ground” or “do I run
this movie over with my car?”
Sideways focuses
on a pre-wedding vacation where two best friends, Miles and Jack, head to
California wine country to be bros and play golf and celebrate Jack’s last week
of freedom…or at least that’s what Miles would like it to be. Where Miles seems
to be using this trip as an escape from thinking about the goals and dreams
that have gotten away from him (while clinging to the final hope he has that a
book he wrote will get published), Jack just wants to fuck everything in sight
in a place he knows his fiancée won’t be because damn…marriage sounds like a
commitment. Together, this dynamic duo travel to a Podunk part of the West
Coast, find two lovely ladies to spend some time with and tackle their fears
and worries head on as they drink and bicker with each other on how the other
person needs to get a grip.
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| Condescending asshole and Playboy piece of shit having one of their rare "Friendship is Magic" moments. |
Miles is basically Frasier Crane if Frasier was a failed
author and starred in a drama on Lifetime as opposed to a sitcom on NBC. He’s a
pompous asshole using his snobbishness as a defense mechanism like how lonely
Trekkies embrace ridiculous amounts of worthless trivia hoping someday the “Kirk
vs. Picard” question will come up in a presidential debate they’re somehow a
part of. He’s condescending and rubs in your face that, right now, he’s smarter
than you, like M. Night (fucking) Shyamalan. This gets him passed the fact that
he failed in marriage and can’t get over it even though it ended two years ago,
can’t get a book published though everyone says he’s a genius and just leads
the kind of existence where people would only show up to his funeral for the
cake. He’s a deep person with deep issues that are completely self-inflicted
and he knows it.
Jack on the other hand is a disappointing small time actor
about to get married to someone I don’t think even he believes he deserves who
is very attractive (I guess…I think Thomas Haden Church is permanently stuck in
“mid-orgasm face” but that’s me), rich, and has lived a life that has been
pretty carefree and without a lot of risk. It’s clear that marriage bothers him
because that level of responsibility seems foreign to him. He is a shallow
person with shallow issues that are only deep to him because he’s never dealt
with anything so much as spilled milk before (or at least, the movie doesn’t
really go down that road).
 |
| Like any idiot pre-wedding buddy movie the goal is simple. Get all kinds of laid. Look at her eyes. Might help. (Spoiler alert: It does in this case.) |
Together they force each other to confront the error of
their thinking and climb out of their self-destructive shells which I appreciate,
but again, the dysfunction is that they do so by being genuinely terrible
people. Condescending asshole and playboy piece of shit. The fact that this
movie throws situations in their face that allow them to be those things where
other people accept those things…doesn’t make them NOT those things anymore. So
Miles found a girl that understands what he’s talking about when he’s spitting
wine trivia back into a jar. Doesn’t mean he’s no longer an asshole about it
because one person finds it ok. So Jack found a town where he can basically
fuck anyone’s brains out and as a result has found “a special connection” that’s
making him question his marriage. Doesn’t mean he’s no longer a playboy piece
of shit because he can get away with it in this one location (kiiiiinda…).
So is the potential loss of these things enough to trigger
some sort of response that makes Miles and Jack say “maybe we’re in the wrong
here?” Or maybe that’s the point! Maybe they have gotten to see “a perfect
scenario” and realized that it’s not that simple and as a result have decided
to make some hard choices about how they look at their own lives. Or maybe they’re
just both fuckwads living out a “National Lampoon for Grown-Ups” storyline and
I’m overcomplicating this crap. They were drinking the whole fucking movie! I
have no clue if they were in their right mind or having those “super deep”
conversations that one has after 2 bottles of wine.
The tone of this movie suggests that it’s two
whippersnappers painting a town red and learning more about themselves in the
process. The 70s style music and directing (seriously? The quick zoom effect?)
put out a carefree, “oh these guys are so silly and that’s why they’re perfect
together” vibe but I can’t possibly see how these two are such good friends.
They have nothing in common and there’s no friendly banter chemistry that suggests
this is anything more than a Grindr date gone horribly, horribly wrong. But
they carry each other through and I genuinely feel like they learned more about
themselves and will be better people as a result. At the same time…I don’t
think they deserve the life that allows them to just…get away with being the
terrible people they were. Maybe that’s jealousy. I don’t know. I’m still
conflicted here.
That being said, I’m doing the only thing that makes sense
to me and giving this 6 dustbusters as it would be 6 glasses of wine (or beer)
I would need to drink before really being able to wrap my mind around any of
this…and even then I’m just throwing my hands in the air and saying “whatever!”
Would I recommend it? …Maybe? I’d probably recommend Hall Pass first which isn’t really a better movie, but at least you
know what it’s trying to do. Would I watch it again? Ummmm…I don’t know. Bring
over a bottle of wine and we’ll see.
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