Sideways

Sideways was showered with prizes last year by American critics, and for obvious reasons. Payne's fourth feature, the first not set in his homeland of Nebraska, is funny and cruel, slightly absurd and melancholy at the same time. Paul Giamatti, who shone last year in American Splendor, also steals the show in this film, now in his role as the divorced, depressed teacher Miles, a would-be romantic and wine connoisseur in his spare time. There are some days when he doesn't just taste the wine... Miles goes off to spend a week with his old college friend Jack in the Californian wine district. He hopes to play some golf and to drink a lot of wine, but Jack (a TV actor with a rectangular jaw) is mainly interested in sex with other women in the week before his wedding. It turns into a week full of adventures that largely involve romantic complications with Stephanie (Sandra Oh) and Maya (Virginia Madsen), who both work as waitresses. Eye to eye with these charming women, both 40-year-old men make a real mess of their midlife crises in their very own ways. Sideways is a unique film within contemporary American cinema and its qualities are only striking when you consider just how self evident they are: a film with a big heart and a sharp eye for human - male - shortcomings, well written, excellently acted, about ordinary people with all their pleasant and especially their unpleasant characteristics. (GT)