Sideways by Alexander Payne

Sideways joins American Beauty as a quiet, bleak comedy that came out of nowhere and surprised a lot of my friends with its quality. Said friends subsequently recommended it quite highly, only for me to discover that, while it is amiable enough (and certainly very funny in places), it certainly isn?t the sort of film which watching on video would reduce one iota (it might improve it, given that you wouldn?t be paying £9 for the privilege). Such is the subjectivity of expectation. It?s a diverting enough ride, but is nowhere near worth all the plaudits which judges from Cannes to Canada seem to be heaping on it (I would say it?s about as good as an above-average episode of Six Feet Under).

Sideways is a tragicomedy. The comedy comes mainly from the excellent Thomas Haden Church, who I?ve been a huge fan of since his completely underappreciated and subversive turn in the short-lived Ned & Stacey. Church plays Jack, a has-been soap opera actor who now does voice work. Jack is a scoundrel who intends to shag as many women as possible in the week leading up to his wedding. But he?s also a very charismatic and funny scoundrel (as the all best ones are), and most of the laughs, certainly the bigger ones, come from something Jack says or does.

With him on his stag-week is his friend from college, Miles (representing tragedy). Miles is a divorced school-teacher* with a novel nobody will buy. He also has anger management issues, issues with his sister, issues with his ex-wife, steals from his mother, and generally struck me as?kind of a jerk. This is a warning sign for a movie. I mean, I don?t want my lead characters to be perfect, in fact I hate that, but nor do I want them to be the sort of person I?d try and escape from in boredom if I engaged them in conversation. Miles? life is pretty pathetic, a point the film rams home on more than one occasion (approximately half the film consists of Miles looking glum).

?I can?t even commit suicide.? he laments. ?I haven?t written a successful book.?

?What about that guy who wrote A Confederacy of Dunces? He killed himself. Look how famous his book got!? says Jack, trying to cheer him up.

?Gee, thanks, Jack.?

The film follows a pretty typical course for a romantic comedy: Things start bad, then they get worse, then they get incredibly bad, then?the guy gets the girl and the movie ends (sorry for the spoiler, but all romcoms end like that, you should know better by now). This follows a fairly common Hollywood fallacy that the solution to everything is to get the girl. Are you a manic-depressive? Do you have a dead-end job? Will nobody buy your book? That?s okay! Get the girl and everything will be alright. The movie, of course, doesn?t go on to show how all of Miles? deep-seated problems, that the movie takes such care in establishing, will go on to affect the subsequent relationship- it just gives you a happy little note to go out on. I know that?s how movies have to be, but for a movie that repeatedly felt like reality impacting (Who doesn?t feel, sometimes, that there life isn?t what they wanted or planned? Help me out here, folks), it had a pretty pat answer.

Sideways is a lot of fun**, and I'd recommend that you check it out when it comes to video. There are some great sight gags, and some great lines (?I am not drinking any FUCKING MERLOT!? has already been screamed multiple times amongst my friends, whenever we go into an off-license...which is often), but I didn?t find, ultimately, that it was a great film. It raises some fairly depressing questions that, as a comedy, it isn?t entirely equipped to handle, and instead settles for one of romcoms oldest clichés as an answer.

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