Movie Review - Sideways

Movie review - Sideways

The movie I viewed for this movie review was titled Sideways. The movie was set in the Santa Barbara Wine Country. I didn’t consider the movie to be very involved with wine, but the parts that discussed wine were very informative. There were two main focus points of the movie: Paul Giamatti’s downward spiraling life and wine. Paul Giamatti plays a character named Miles Raymond, who has one of the most consistently depressing lives I’ve witnessed on screen and his best friend Jack, played by Thomas Haden Church, is the typical guy that gets everything when he doesn’t deserve anything.

The movie begins with the explanation that Miles and Jack were college roommates, after Miles is 2years out of a divorce and attempting to write a book and Jack is one week away from getting married, they decided to take a trip to the California wine country and indulge in a quick get away just for the boys. They begin their trip with Miles stopping off at this mothers to lie and steal to get the essentials for their trip, hence why most viewers don’t feel anything bad for Miles throughout the cinematic adventure.

As the trip goes on, Miles experiences a handful of mental breakdowns, throws a fit in wineries, and spends a lot of time envious of Jack. Jack, on the other hand, spends time trying to find women other than his fiancé to sleep with, good times for his last hooray as a single man, and spends no time caring for Miles’ mental breakdowns. Like I said earlier, I did not see much of a focus on wine throughout this movie. I think they through in little clips about wine to say that it had some informational purpose aside from its obnoxiously dramatic nature.

 The movie did not discuss wine on the technical level of regions, terrior, or styles. The deepest level of knowledge that the movie dived into was the different grape varietals and the growth and bottling process. The great thing about this movie was that is was filmed on location in the California wine country and helped with the tourism after the movie was released. There are numerous wineries shot in the movie and they do the entire tasting process. They examine the color of the wine, the legs, they swirl, sniff, and taste. The wine in the movie works as the glue that gives Miles and Jack their trip, as well as forms their relationships with all of the people they meet along the way. All of the actors in the movie have a great appreciation and a high understanding for wine, excluding Jack.

Miles talks about how the skin of the grapes will affect the color of the wine. He also discusses how there are certain grapes which are more sensitive than other grapes, causing for different growth conditions. Difference growth conditions also stem from the need to have different tasting wines. He expressed how important it is to swirl and sniff the wine to really allow it to open up and get all of the flavors and aromas that it has to offer.

As stated before, I don’t think this video should have been recommended as a video to watch for class. It seemed pointless and did not help my understanding of wine in any way. There was so much drama and negativity and there was really nothing to do with the informational, wine part that I was expecting. I was really waiting for the informative part of the movie where I would learn about wine but I walked away from it frustrated because I felt like I wasted my time hearing about things I already knew about grape varietals and huge, dramatic mid-life crises. I would not recommend this film to a wine audience.