Sideways - Director Alexander Payne

Colours to the mast. I hated About Schmidt (Review in Archive). Sideways is much better, but its spirit and emotional tone make it very much a companion piece. Both pose the question: is pathos enough to drive a movie? I've always thought of pathos as a bit like happiness: something that happens when you are pursuing something else. In Sideways, as in AS, it is as if director Payne is aiming for pathos at the outset. However, unlike AS, he does, in the last half hour of Sideways, sort of hit the mark. Nerdy, wine bore Miles, does emerge as a sympathetic character but the strength of this is undermined by Payne setting him up as pathetic from the start.

The emotional tone of the film is therefore, muddled and keeps sending mixed messages from the very beginning, especially about Miles. For example: what are we supposed to make of his love of wine? Early on he is the worst kind of wine-snob bore, showing off with his talk of "just a flutter of edam" to brain-dead, loins-live Jack whose sole interest in wine is confined to how many glasses it takes to get laid. Yet in a nicely written later scene where Miles and Maya have withdrawn discreetly to the porch while Jack and Stephanie indulge in some noisy wine-treading in the bedroom, Maya's passion for wine and Miles's appreciation of it, seems very real and truthful. Fortunately, the superb performances just about overcome the implausibility of the characterisation and the frequent weakness of the writing.

It is clear that Payne's instincts and sympathies are with Miles and Maya. That's OK, but the consequence is that Jack for example is very lazily written. He is just too brain-in-his-pants dumb to provide the right kind of foil for what Payne appears to want to do with the movie and the central relationship that drives it. Serious suspension of disbelief is necessary to buy into this 'friendship'. They simply don't share enough emotional common ground to make their different attitudes to sex and relationships overlap enough to be interesting. As written, Miles's real feeling for Jack is contempt and Jack's for him exasperated disbelief. The device of them having been freshman flatmates just can't bear the weight.

Hey Z - lighten up: it's a comedy. Well I agree there are couple of sublime moments in the film which are worth the price of admission in themselves. One a perfect sight gag and the other a genuinely laugh-aloud comic situation so strong it gives you after-chuckles as you drive home. But, if it's a comedy, why do we wait so long to smile? Unless of course the incidents of toe-curling embarrassment for Miles earlier may raise a smile for some. But this this is Focker country and for me they have all the humour of a cruel practical joke on the weakest member of the group.

In the end, my problem with the movie is that Payne does not seem to be able to make up his mind what he wants it to be. As a comedy, it just takes too long to get going; a flash of brilliance, and then it runs out of time. As a bitter-sweet, wry observation of the trials and tribulations of a nice, ordinary but shy guy, Payne sabotages his own character: Miles's novel-writing is less sad than laughable, and we see virtually nothing of his life as a teacher which might have given him some depth in which our empathy might grow. In the end, Sideways is for me, just as manipulative as After Schmidt, with a sort of inverted sentimentality of spirit that sadly undermines some genuinely touching moments. The basic narrative structure is I think the problem. You can hang a broad comedy on the idea of two unlikely friends on a last-fling trip; the one to get laid, the other to find love. But if you want, as I think Payne does, to go deeper, then their journey surely must have a more purposeful, less crass objective. If you want a movie that succeeds magnificently in achieving a profound sense of true pathos throughout, get The Straight Story out on DVD. There the journey in question has a real, emotionally charged, serious purpose. The pathos emerges from the interplay of real character and convincing narrative, it is not for a second the conscious objective of the director in the first place.

Zettel 2005


<Added>

Sorry - Freudian slip or not - I constantly transpose 'About' Schmidt in to 'After' Schmidt - maybe it's getting its own back!.

Z

Saw the film last night, Z and totally agree with your review (thought I couldn't have put it so eloquently). Jack was a sort-of Joey-from-Friends type and there were some extremely long and wordy wine speeches. The beginning was dangerously expositional, a good edit wouldn't have gone amiss but the overall effect was entertaining.

On a side note, they seemed to knock a hellovalotof wine back and then get into the car and drive and Miles was the only one who ever seemed worse for wear!

I'm glad I ate before going to the cinema!

Elspeth

El

Thanks for the comment. I sometimes get the sense of a herd instinct about movie reviews nowadays. Sideways seems a good example of going OTT about a film that has its moments but could have been much better.

I will see any movie (except horror - I'm very picky about that genre which in essence I dislike) irrespective of whether I have read a review. However I do try very hard not to read a review of a film before I write one myself.

I'd like to think this might sometimes encourage people to see a good film they might otherwise have missed for example. Reviews like Sideways are I guess an invitation to discuss a film. As with any reviewer, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

Regards

Zettel

Wow, you guys are tough.
Aren't you glad you saw this film, though? Or were you literally bored the whole way through?

Zettel, I'm anticipating your review for I Heart The Hucklebees. I just watched the DVD and loved it, very very bizarre. Dustin Hoffman is so damn good in it though. He's good in everything.

Si

I hope we aren't. I Just love movies. I am a great fan of good trash as Pauline Kael once put it. Hitch isn't trying to be anything more than a fun night out and to make you laugh - no mean achievement under any circumstances.

The trouble for me with Sideways was, as I tried to say, that it couldn't really make up it's mind whether it just wanted to make us laugh or buy into the pathos of the story as written as well. It's funny bits were very funny which made one wonder why they were so long a-coming and therefore so few and the other more serious intention didn't really work for me.

Occasionally you get something extraordinary which achieves both: a good example that comes to mind was the Dick Clement Ian la Frenais TV series Porridge - character driven humour and so real at times it wasn't clear whether the tears were laughter or sadness. There are some movies as well but they refuse to come to mind at the moment.

I enjoyed the movie: but not quite as much as the general critical response which seemed to go a bit OTT.

I was disappointed to miss I Heart Huckabees despite its dumb title, if for no other reason than the casting. I would watch Lily Tomlin read the phone book. Will reluctantly catch it on DVD but I seldom review from DVD as people have mostly been there, done that, by then and would find a review a bit tedious unless there is a serious issue to offer for debate.

Regards

Zettel