SIDEWAYS (2004)

Finally, a perfectly balanced comedy drama. The thing about comedy dramas generally seems to be that they tend to either over emphasise the comedy aspects or the dramatic aspects. But perhaps the freshest thing about this is something that perhaps may seems a little negative to say but is true; this is a chick flick for guys, something that I don’t think I have ever seen in my entire life, and if I have, than not with two characters like Jack and Miles, although there are elements in the two friends that follow the usual traits that were set up in a definite manner by the great Laurel and Hardy. Jack is a winner, whereas Miles is a loser. However, both these characters are average joes, they don’t look like beautiful screen gods, neither are they perfect. In this movie, they can be happy one minute and terribly depressed the next.

For once, we get a movie where the male characters do not have to fall in the usual, conventional traits that have been set up by cinema since its invention, or at least since its commercialisation, which depicts the male character as the strong sex and the female character as the weaker sex. Of course there are exceptions even excluding characters of a homosexual or satirical nature, and even exclude the homosexuality notoriously depicted in the character of the films of the New Queer Cinema movement from the late eighties early nineties. Most importantly, it seems to me like those stereotypes can be altered more easily in the female characters, in other words, the wider audience (and film producers) can understand and empatise with a stronger female character ala Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind than weak (human) male characters. Well, if there is one thing this movie is able to do is that it’s able to show the world that yes, a movie which openly deals with the difficulties of a weaker more human male character is possible through good screenwriting (heck, it may even show that if chick flicks weren’t so damn commercial, they could be worth something too).

The film is great, and as I say, well balanced, as far as the genre is concerned. It’s very sophisticated, no doubt about it, and the thing that it was so succesful kind of surprises me, but then again, reading some reviews below that call this film ‘overrated’ leads me to think that a lot of people may have seen it but not liked it (still, it got a lot of awards that year and is a critics favourite, so beat that trolls). I guess for some people, or the backbone of the cinema audience that feels comfortable enough tied down to the conventionalities of cinema, this film is uncomfortable, not familiar and much to sophisticated. Really, this film is everything but commercial, I mean, it’s not even that kind of movie that would be easy to market, although its target audience is obviously for a more mature crowd although from a personal perspective, I’m twenty and I still liked and could identify with the characters. This is also because the performances are great. Paul Giamatti, we should know, is an exceptional character actor, but not exactly as famous as a guy like Brad Pitt or George Clooney. In fact, casting any big name in Sideways would probably have gone against the whole feeling of the movie. Thomas Hayden Church actually plays the character of an actor in his late thirties who still hasn’t gotten his big break. Both Church and Giamatti hence embody the average male. They also share great chemistry, the sort that is filled with the tension love and hate, the sort that the best of friends have for each other. And as a sophisticated film, it couldn’t have an element that conveyed the feeling of the movie more than wine, which seems to also be used as a dream like item, from an excuse for a getaway trip with a friend to the dream object of the alternative and symbolism for a brand new life.

If I was to point out a fault, it would be that it sure takes its time in starting out, perhaps as annoying as the whole process of wine tasting would be for a man like Jack. Once it starts, you really get into their characters and ‘their plights’ whether you identify more with Miles or Jack.

WATCH FOR THE MOMENT – The first date Miles and Jack have with the girls, with a slight emphasis on the moments before they enter the wine bar, and a tense Giamatti screams possibly the best line in the movie ‘if anyone orders any Merlot, I’m leaving. I’m not fucking drinking any Merlot’.