A different way of telling a story

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Boy, I was so bored while watching this turkey of a movie. The acting was good but the plot, the characters...just so miserable. No one was really likable, no one. Not the main characters, not the women they sleep with. Both guys seemed like real losers. I certainly didn't laugh during this movie.

Where this easily could've just been a vain pseudo-intellectual production of intellectual masturbation for two hours with no plot, it actually surprises and has real substance to it.First of all, Paul Giamatti is excellent. He isn't 'very good', he's excellent. The opinion is not overblown, he simply acts every single moment out like it was totally real, but I mean, right down to the unimportant eye movement, eyebrow positioning...he conveys all the impressions that were so important for the lead character to do, throughout the whole film. This isn't a case of the lead actor carrying the film, as the film is very good in its own right, it's a matter of having picked exactly, but I mean exactly the right guy for the right job.They all do well, and Virginia Madsen has more to her ability than this mere role, but she plays it well, every actor delivers the right performance. Haden Church also good.I'll get it out of the way that the film is very well structured, not once do you get bored or complacent with it, it manages its tension superbly well, very good tempo and the events fit their place just well, not a scene too many...so as a more general commentary about the film beyond the technical/cinematographic aspects, this film does really well at being about a pretty uninteresting story really, a pretty used up topic, and doing it in a very particular way which itself brings meaning and purpose about. Not so many films have that flavor, their own atmosphere, their own scent. This one has that. You follow the adventure like you're there, in there, not like you're behind some computer screen watching actors play roles. The details depicted in this film with regards to relationship, to things brewing in one's mind...are so very realistic and subtle. The film gets a hold of you, and although there's plenty of immoral happening in the story, there are also meaningful wiser choices and an actual moral ultimately, one that spread its buds throughout the whole film and observes full bloom at the end in a very classy way (classy, like the rest of it).8.5/10.

The tittle of this review can really tell you what remained with me by the end of the movie. Some wine and some lies. Lying to your future wife, lying to your weekend lover, lying to your best friend and at the end of the day you lie to your own self. On the one hand the desire to not wanting all the lies and the deceptions and on the other lies and deceptions are all its given. What's the meaning of this? What is really the message here? That this is life when you grow up? The heck with that. If that's the case, Peter Pan come and rescue me.

Sideways is a thoughtful, studied, and dryly comic look at two very different kinds of losers. Miles (Giamatti) and Jack (Church), are both approaching middle age with too little to show for it, so they embark on a week-long excursion touring vineyards in Santa Inez, Solvang, and surroundings in lieu of a traditional stag party. Jack, undiscerning, immature, and soon to be married, is still coasting on his waning fame as a television doctor from twenty years ago, while Miles, cynical introvert depressive living down a difficult divorce two years on, awaits the last possible rejection of his unpublished tome of a novel. Surely such polar opposites must really love each other to remain friends this long? Not exactly. You get the sense they are each merely the last best option standing within the social isolation / detritus of their lives. Consequently, the trip they had intended to reaffirm their brotherhood devolves quickly; Miles is just there to get drunk on wine he can't otherwise afford on a middle-school teacher's salary, and Jack's burning urgency is to get laid one or ten last times - at least so they say. Reality is more bittersweet; Jack fears for his freedom while Miles retreats into a pretend world where he's still visiting this beautiful country with his ex-wife. There's a lot to chew on here.And it is beautiful country. The film employs real vineyards, often keeping their real name, interior design, and occasionally staff, as vibrant background. But rest assured, wine tasting is just table dressing here - Sideways is as much about California wine country as Chocolat is about confections. Miles' encyclopedic appreciation for wine is a cover for his depression-fueled alcoholism, while Jack has no interest in the virgin grape beyond the women pouring it. Maya (Madsen), fellow wine nerd, and Stephanie (Oh), pot-smoking single mother, match the men's personalities, but not their failures. They may not be where they want to be in life, but at least they face it with a certain maturity and without lying about their situations. As much as Sideways is a film about mid-life crises (male menopause if you will), it is a film about lying. Miles and Jack are lying to each other, to the women they pick up, and ultimately to themselves from very nearly the first line of dialogue. By the third act things have come to a head, as expected, with no way out but through. In fact, Jack frequently posits great ideas to turn their lives around, but both men are too self-destructive to follow them up.Other aspects of the film match the content. The score is ambient, but not intruding. The editing is occasionally flashy, but never at the expense of plot or dialogue, the camera-work is what cinema verite would look like if the camera were always mounted. Nothing in excess seems to be the motto, and it's a good one considering the introspective quality of the story. Where the closest you get to action is pudgy middle-aged men briskly walking around a driveway, the humor is dry as a domestic syrah, we always know our destination and there are no tears when we get there, then why not let the thing alone to speak for itself? That's what Alexander Payne did and we should be grateful.Sideways is a slice-of-life film, necessarily starting and ending without too much success or failure. It is expected and a bit precarious, but so is real life. It is the film's open-ended nature that makes its bleakness bearable.10 / 10, by turns darkly funny and sad-making