Sideways

It seems like the word "perfect" is used so often in movie reviews that the word has all but lost its meaning. This movie is the "perfect romantic comedy!" That movie is "perfect for audiences of all ages!" And the other one is "perfectly entertaining!" But when is a movie really perfect? When it does its job? Hardly. When it satisfies some temporary longing in the viewer for emotional verisimilitude? Occasionally. But when a movie is truly perfect, it's just that, not a characterization out of place, nor a plot point too heavily tread upon. And Sideways is, truly and sincerely, as perfect a movie as I've seen in longer than I can remember.

The film stars two unlikely leads, perfectly cast in their respective roles. Paul Giamatti (American Splendor) is Miles, a failed novelist and bordeline alcoholic; Thomas Haden Church (George of the Jungle and I mean that as a compliment) is Jack, an aging soap star on the cusp of marriage. When the two take a trip up to Santa Barbara wine country, Miles finds himself ostracized from what was intended to be a week of male bonding when Jack reveals he's desperate to have one last fling before tying the knot.

Alexander Payne has made himself the business' best documentarian of human stories, and Sideways is replete with comi-tragic episodes that juxtapose the sweet and the sour of Miles' sad-sack existence. The single-disc DVD includes a handful of bonus features, including a featurette and deleted scenes, that are enlightening without adding significantly to Payne's vision, but entertain nonetheless.

Added to that is an funny commentary by Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church, who mostly make one another laugh amidst observations of the film's props and personal idiosyncrasies. But where is Payne's commentary? A dissertation on the relative merits of merlot and pinot noir? Or a map of wine country for Sideways fans who want to follow their on screen counterparts from one winery to another? Perhaps they feared that the inclusion of such extras might make the film too perfect. Personally, I would have preferred they risk it.

In Sideways, Giamatti's gift to his director is to make Miles' melancholy palpable, but more importantly, redeemable. Payne's gift to the film is to cast that redemption in a light that is not only believable but unavoidably sympathetic. Together, their gift to the audience is to make a perfect film that celebrates, of all things, our inherent and inescapable imperfections. -- Todd Gilchrist