Drinking Deep

down to the dregs: Paul Giamatti (left) and Thomas Haden Church toss one back.

Sideways goes through a wine glass, softly.

by Sam Adams

Just as it's never too late to change your life for the better, your life is never so screwed up you can't make it worse. That's the semi-inspirational message of Alexander Payne's Sideways, a midlife-crisis comedy which is at once gentle and acute, comforting and terrifying. The split personality makes sense, since at first glance, its pair of wine-country weekenders couldn't be more mismatched. Miles (Paul Giamatti) is a glum, nervous schoolteacher and unpublished novelist; Jack (Thomas Haden Church) is a sun-baked soap-opera actor who's spending the last week before his impending marriage with Miles in the Santa Ynez Valley, shuttling between vineyards and rundown steakhouses with killer wine lists.

Former freshman roommates, the two have known each other so long they don't bother with affection; each is there to keep the other in check. For Jack, Miles is the kind of friend actors keep handy to convince themselves they haven't "sold out," while Miles desperately needs an omnivore like Jack to remind him that life isn't an unending stream of sorrow. (Miles' first line, after test-tasting two pieces of wedding cake, is "I prefer the dark.") Giamatti and Church's worn-in ease with each other smashes buddy-movie conventions. It's a real friendship, like the half-loving, half-hostile bond between George Segal and Elliott Gould in California Split.

As Sideways rolls on, you get the sad sense that it's also a friendship whose end is nearing. Miles, still reeling from a years-old divorce, needs someone to lift his spirits, but Jack seems more concerned with getting Miles to act like a faithful sidekick. Miles may have a week of wine-bibbing in mind, but Jack is looking for one last fling before the door slams shut on his bachelor days. Likewise, Jack needs someone to knock him out of his prolonged adolescence, but why would he take direction from a depressive eighth-grade English teacher whose idea of fun is sipping wine, then spitting it out?

Wine is many things in Sideways, but in the broadest terms, it's the stuff of life. Miles approaches it with deadly seriousness and determination: As if it's not enough for Miles to note hints of asparagus and "a nutty Edam cheese" in one particularly complex vintage, Giamatti actually presses his fingers to one ear, like a soprano aiming for a high note. Jack, of course, is a guzzler. Miles has to remind him, too late, to spit out his gum before taking a swig.

In movies about male friendship, women inevitably take a back seat, but if the women in Sideways don't get equal time, Payne never treats them like props or plot fixtures. Along with co-writer Jim Taylor, Payne has the knack of giving you the feeling you've walked in on something that's been going on for years, like Miles' long-standing crush on Maya (Virginia Madsen), a pretty waitress at one of those oenophile steak shacks. When Jack goads Miles into asking her out, it's Miles' fantasy come true, but the flesh-and-blood awkwardness of a relationship neither one is ready for quickly takes hold. Jack has no difficulty jumping into bed with Stephanie (Sandra Oh), a winery bartender, but their no-strings-attached sexual relationship gets tangled when Jack discovers she has a young son. Men may be surprised by Jack's self-destructive response to this sudden turn, but I imagine women will be more likely to nod their heads.

Payne has been labeled a satirist and sometimes attacked for his supposed superiority to his characters. In a just world, Sideways would exonerate him of both charges. From its burnished, soft-focus look (courtesy of cinematographer Phedon Papamichael), unabashedly reminiscent of American films of the 1970s, to its rich comic performances, Sideways shaves the edges off Payne's brittle wit. Church in particular shows depths his sitcom past never even hinted at, especially when Payne gives him the chance to peel back the skin of his forced joviality.

The film's extended wine metaphor comes to a head when Miles, whose disdain for Merlot verges on pathological, explains his love of the pinot grape: it's delicate, persnickety and grows only with great care—which makes it, of course, a lot like Miles himself. But as Maya reminds him, on a night when their inhibitions almost fall, there's a moment when wine peaks, when it's as good as it's ever going to get. As she talks, the background around her seems to drop away; the focus softens, and Miles stares rapt, and you can feel him falling in love—not just with her, but with her wisdom. Seizing the moment isn't Miles' forte: It takes Maya to point out that the title of his unpublished novel, The Day After Yesterday, is just a complicated way of saying "today." But every moment in Sideways is worth seizing.

In some ways, Sideways is a modest movie; ambition too great would ill suit its characters. But it's hardly a modest achievement when real life finds its way onto the screen, even less so when it stays still long enough for you to take a long, soft look at it.