The only downfall to "Sideways" is that Paul Giammati did not receive a best actor nod for the 77th Annual Academy Awards.
The film follows Giamatti as Miles, a melancholy junior high school teacher and struggling writer whose divorce has left him in a seemingly comatose state. Before his college best friend, Jack (Thomas Haden Church) gets married, the two men embark on a road trip through California's wine country, intent on one last fling in dual bachelorhood.
Both actors are a delight to watch on the screen, even considering their nails-on-a-chalkboard character flaws. Jack, a television actor - Church played "Lowell" on the '90s sitcom "Wings" - whose résumé is fat with advertising voice-overs, doesn't hesitate to seduce women by reciting his most well-known lines with puppy dog innocence. Watching the soon-to-be-hitched Jack's conscience-free seduction techniques, you could hug him as much as you would want to punch him in the stomach.
Giamatti's portrayal of Miles has the same effect on the screen - as a wine connoisseur who can spend hours describing one sip of pinot noir, Miles is as obnoxiously pretentious as he is wounded. Hating to see his friend's dishonesty, Miles continually tells Jack to call his fiancée, but trips over his own conversation with Maya (Virginia Madsen), a waitress to whom he's had a lengthy adoration.
Director Alexander Payne is no stranger to these psychologically complex characters, who have appeared in "Election" - see Matthew Broderick's character, Jim - and "About Schmidt," with Jack Nicholson. Actors are guided into roles where they do unbearable, even despicable things, yet you can't bring yourself to dislike them.
The recent previews for "Sideways" have also advertised it as being something about "the way men think and the women who try to understand them." Please ignore this remark, which cheapens "Sideways" to nothing more than a goofy comedy about the differences between men and women. "Sideways" doesn't even present gender divisions this way - here, female characters like sex, wine and drunken conversation as much as their male counterparts, and only become upset, as anyone would, when they realize they've been lied to about important details. For example: "I love you...oh, yeah, I'm getting married this weekend."
Interspersed with hilarious arguments between Jack and Miles, and soul-searching moments while characters are hungover, the score to "Sideways" is wonderful and doesn't detract from the central moments of the film. The jazzy accompaniments to a scene which shows the progressive drunken state of Giamatti in particular is brilliant.
Like a great bottle of cabernet sauvignon, "Sideways" can potentially make you laugh, cry and even - thanks to occasional blurry camera work and indecent character lies - want to hug the toilet.
