i took myself along to see sideways last night. or, more precisely, was invited to do so by a fellow cinematic recalcitrant some four months after its theatrical release in australia. it had been variously described to me as uncannily pertinent, hysterical (a pisser, in fact; thanks jane, she is everso eloquent) and the most overrated film of the year (an opinion i suspected appropriated from jim schembri, later confirmed). i also had a vague recollection of a short piece in the age citing a new york times’ film critic’s claim that it would have made a more worthy winner at the academy awards than million dollar baby.*
the most I can say for it was that it was pleasant, agreeable and unextraordinary. the protagonist, miles (paul giamati) lives a life of quiet desperation - living, as he says, from bottle to bottle - from which he never resiles and, like in his 700 page unpublished novel, no definitive resolution is offered by this film. this left my companion wanting more but I don’t know of how much more this film was capable. no genuine pathos was engendered for the characters, one of whom (sandra oh’s stephanie) was introduced and discarded as little more than a plot device. although the film attempted to imbue itself with meaning containing several verbose exchanges concerning the nature of wine as analogies for the characters’ lives, poignancy was foregone and the story played itself out seemingly for nothing more than laughs. it was nice but empty, breezy but lightweight (is this what is meant by a european sensibility?). if anything the impression one left with was of a little film, with no over-reaching ambition, that achieved what it set out to accomplish. and in that sense, it was well made. but it didn’t get me.
* subsequent to drafting this post, i tracked down the age article which referred to said critic’s (caryn james) piece as a "blistering" indictment of the institution of the academy awards under the headline swipe at the oscars. it can be found in the metro section in paul kalina’s short cuts column on the 10th march, 2005 and is available at the age website at cost. according to kalina, james was unimpressed with both the ceremony and outcome, railing against the devaluation of the awards and lamenting that sideways (the most "innovative" film of the year) was overlooked. the original source for this piece, which was published on march 1st, 2005, can be found here [NB: you may need to register as a NYTimes.com member to access the full text] and i thought it to be far more sanguine, measured and level-headed than readers of the age were led to believe.
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