There's a little thing going around Facebook asking people to post "10 movies they saw in the last few years that stayed with them." Funny thing is, of all the movies I've seen, and I like to consider myself a fan of movies in general, there's only one that's really, resonated with me over the last decade and a half or so, and that's Alexander Payne's 2004 film Sideways. Sure, I've enjoyed lots of other films in my lifetime and even in the last ten years alone, and I even have many of them on DVD, but as I understand the phrase "stay with you" there's something a lot more than just enjoyment and/or entertainment at work. And so by that standard Sideways, and only Sideways, has truly left a burr in my consciousness.
At its heart, Sideways is basically a midlife crisis movie. I connected to this film because I watched it the year I turned 30, and while the big Four-Oh is two years away for me (a year and a half, to be precise), that film still connects with me in a way that few other films ever have, before or since, and because I cannot seem to find my actual review of the movie (which I wrote right here on blogger) I'll give a little summary.
Middle school teacher Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti), is frustrated in many aspects his life. He's divorced, stuck in a dreary job, living in a drab apartment, and anxiously hoping for his novel to be published. The one thing that seems to give him any joy is wine, in particular pinot noir. As the film begins,he looks forward to is taking his friend, washed-up former actor Jack Cole (Thomas Haden Church), who is about to get married, on a tour of Santa Ynez Valley, one of the great wine hubs of California, as one last getaway before Jack gets hitched. Jack and Miles drink wine and meet people on the way, including winery employee Stephanie (Sandra Oh) and waitress/master's degree candidate Maya (Virginia Madsen). As their acquaintance with the ladies progresses Jack seems intent on getting his rocks off with Stephanie, while Miles grapples with being at a crossroads his life. Will he love again? Will his novel ever get published? Will he ever open his prized bottle of 1961 pinot?
It's just as well that I'm re-reviewing this film, because I find myself laughing at a story trope I wasn't really aware of when I first watched it. I find myself amused, for example, by the well-worn cliche that Miles' novel is basically about him. Watching this, and Woody Allen's 2011 film Midnight in Paris, one would imagine that in Hollywood movies, the only people novelists, especially struggling ones, ever know how to write about are themselves.
What I loved about this movie was how brutally honest and how utterly down-to-earth it felt and still feels. Giamatti was really the perfect choice for the role of Miles Raymond; he invested the character with a heartbreaking vulnerability that made him utterly sympathetic, even at his most pathetic moments in the film. Everyone in the cast was at the top of their game, but this was, for me, Giamatti's show through-and-through. Not being the most dashing actor, he never really snagged a lot of lead roles after that, but he has been working steadily ever since, both in awards-bait, art-house fare and in blockbusters. In fact, like his Sideways alumnus Haden Church, who played Sandman in Spider-Man 3, Giamatti will also play one of Spider-Man's bad guys in next year's The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
I'm actually older now than Giamatti was when Sideways came out, and if nothing else I consider myself fortunate that unlike the character he played in that movie, I am not nearly as down and out as he was throughout most of it. Still, so much of his anguish at feeling he had achieved too little in his life considering his age really speaks to me. I like to think I've had a good life so far, but I cannot escape the thought that I could have done things better.
Still, like Sideways, which ends on a cliffhanger of sorts, life doesn't really end when one particular story does. My story will go on, and even though I suffer from insecurity and feelings of inadequacy like Miles did, I still have time to try my best and make things better.
I also really enjoyed Life of Pi, incidentally, but I'll have to wait for several years to see if it really stays with me the way Sideways has.
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