Sideways vs Love Liza

Sideways begins with Miles (Paul Giamatti) being late for a meeting. He rushes around for a second, but then tiny errands keep piling on. He has to pack, and then he finds himself reading in the bathroom, and then he has to stop for coffee and the paper, and then he's not really driving as fast as he could, because he's gotten caught up in the crossword puzzle, which he has propped up against the steering wheel. When he finally arrives, well traffic was awful, see, and you just never can tell how much time you'll need. How is it possible that something this true has never been in a movie before? Something so out of every morning of my life? Sideways is full of details like this. Tiny human failings and humiliations that we see every day, but somehow never seem to make it onto the screen.

Miles is probably a drunk, but his drink of choice is wine, so he's considered a connoisseur. Miles has a crappy apartment, is recently divorced, and his just-finished novel is not likely to be just-published anytime soon. His best friend is Jack (Thomas Hayden Church), a former sitcom actor who does voice-over work, and is getting married at the end of the week. Jack is shallow and self-centered; you get the idea he watches reality show hosts with deep envy. Miles is taking Jack on a roadtrip to California wine country as sort of a bachelor's last hurrah. Jack has other plans: he wants to turn this last vacation into an extended fling, a grown-up spring break of decadence and women. What they end up with is a mixture of the two, with Jack finding his fling, and Mile drinking lots and lots of wine.

Experts in movies usually have to dumb down their field somewhat for viewers. In Sideways, Miles talks long and lovingly about wine, but he never gets remedial (he describes one wine as “quaffable, but far from transcendent”). Aside from one tasting lesson for Jack, Miles speaks of wine as if it's a thing everyone loves, and that everyone knows about. I like that. I like when a movie thinks I'm smarter than I am. Of course, this is the first time I recall this happening. Most movies think I'm a moron. Miles knows grapes, and soil, and color and vineyard and bottle and probably cork. He knows smells and tastes and women. Wait, scratch that last thing.

Miles still hasn't gotten over his divorce, despite it being two years in his past. He takes Jack to a steak house (the restaurants in Sideways feel more authentic than movie restaurants ever do. These look like true restaurants that people frequent, and the food looks like food people eat.) he's been to so often he's on a first name basis with the staff, but he's never gotten to know Maya, who Jack pegs right away as hot and available. Maya (Virginia Madsen) joins them for a drink, but Miles is so awkward and outwardly sad that they soon go their separate ways.

Halfway through their first day of wine tasting, Jack and Miles meet Stephanie (Sandra Oh), who works at a vineyard and happens to be a friend of Maya. They meet for dinner, and although Miles drinks way too much, the couples are compatible, and the trip Miles had planned stays pretty much in that area, among steak houses and wineries and two women that just might be worth all the trouble they get themselves into.

Sideways is a great, great movie. It was directed by Alexander Payne, hence the two “greats”. I've reviewed films by Payne on here before, but here's the list, for the uninitiated among you: Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt, and now, Sideways. Each one interestingly presented, full-bodied-yet-delicate, robust-yet-mild, distinct-yet-familiar. Each one aging beautifully. Alexander Payne movies are to me what wine is to Miles. I'm an Alexander Payne drunk, and I don't plan on quitting anytime soon.

Take his cast, for example. Paul Giamatti, Thomas Hayden Church, Sandra Oh, Virginia Madsen. These players were chosen, obviously, for talent and chemistry. There's not a box office star among them, no regulars among the talk show circuit, no faces for the posters. Miles is complicated; he's an intelligent, funny failure. He's so well-mannered about his sadness and anger. And the man loves wine. It might seem at first as if he's channeling the love he'd like to be giving his ex-wife (or maybe someone new) into his hobby, but no. Any woman in his life will have to make room for wine. Paul Giamatti is tremendously good in Sideways. He has scenes that are so broad they could be slapstick in less steady hands, but with Giamatti end up moving. Whether he's sprinting down a hill drinking from a wine bottle, or trying to fake-laugh the tears away upon seeing his ex-wife, Giamatti never plays for our sympathies, but gets them anyway. The rest of the cast is just as good. Virginia Madsen is great as Maya. When she explains her love of wine to Miles, you see everything you need to know about her character: passion, sadness, kindness. If Miles isn't gonna chat her up more at the steak house, he better at least start leaving bigger tips.

As Miles and Maya's bachelor-week companions, Thomas Hayden Church and Sandra Oh are both somewhat of a surprise. Oh and Church come from two of the least spectacular long-running sitcoms in recent memory (Arli$$ and Wings), but both have been given stellar material here, and both make the most of the opportunity. Church has sort of a thankless role, in that Jack's an immature womanizer, but there's more to it than that, and by the time Jack is sobbing, begging for help, I was hoping he'd get it.  And Oh, on top of having one of the best actor names ever, gives a charismatic, funny, bold performance.

Ultimately Sideways is one of those movies that makes you want to go out and recreate the events, albeit in a peaceful way, with no car wrecks or motorcycle helmets to the face. Sideways inspires conversation, expertise, and friendship. Call up some friends, see Sideways, and grab a bottle of Pino on the way home.

Sideways could have been a different movie. As pathetic as Miles can be, we know he's going to be okay, because he has friends. His car's a wreck, but at least there's someone in the passenger seat. But what if there wasn't? Well, then he might be a little more like Wilson, the main character of Love Liza.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman stars as Wilson, so you know right away that he's going to be complex, possibly even difficult or frustrating. Hoffman is one of my favorite actors, but he often inspires me to yell at the screen, “Wait! Just stop and think for a second.” Wilson's wife has committed suicide, and it's not clear why. He has a note, but won't read it. He hasn't been sleeping in their bed, electing instead to curl up in the hallway. At work, he's become increasingly awkward, laughing too loudly, and growing more belligerent as the days pass.

Wilson begins sniffing gasoline. You'd think he'd turn to drugs or alcohol, but he seems too innocent for that. Maybe gasoline is a thing he did as a kid? I'm not sure what his motivation is, but he goes for the huff. A lot. Eventually, it rouses suspicion (why does he need so much gas?) so Wilson lies and says it's for his remote-control planes. Before he can stop it, Wilson's lies have gotten him a hobby and a new friend, one actually interested in model planes. One thing leads to another, and before you know it, yep, that's Wilson, swimming in a lake, while model boats buzz around and hobbyists scream from the shore. Man, how many movies is this gonna happen in?

Love Liza might sound silly, but it's quite touching. It was directed with a calm, indie touch by Todd Louiso, and was written by Phillip Seymour Hoffman's brother, Gordy, who you know is a good guy because a.) He wrote a great part for his brother, and b.) His name is Gordy. Phillip Seymour Hoffman seems to understand Wilson's pain. He's funny and childlike, but mostly he just hurts. Wilson has only one supporter, his ex-wife's mother (Kathy Bates), but he's losing her trust quickly. She wants to read the letter, and wishes Wilson would just grow up already. But no, he just keeps huffing his pain away, and if he has to go down to the remote-control boat expo to keep his lie alive, then so be it. Wilson doesn't actually have any hobbies, or interests, or real friends, and it's hard to tell what he might have been like before his wife died. But Hoffman is so good and sincere, we're willing to forego any doubts or questions we might have, in the hopes that maybe he'll eventually sit down with that letter, and figure some stuff out, and maybe even meet a groovy steak-house waitress, one that can look him in the eye and talk at length about how a model airplane is a beautiful thing, because it lives, and every day you play with your model plane is different from the last. Until then, he's just gotta keep sleeping in the hallway and hope for the best.

Sideways: A
Love Liza: B