‘Sideways’ is true to life and its characters

From the opening of “Sideways,” the film appears to have the potential to suffer from “quirk overkill”—where an odd, plinking soundtrack exists in nearly all the scenes and characters are unbelievably offbeat. Such whimsy is what attracts filmgoers to movies like “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,” but such treatment eventually sinks the production by sailing adrift in a meaningless fashion.

Luckily, “Sideways” manages to avoid the problem altogether with a single solution: it has a point, a gloriously intricate point.

The film is about the big and little things in life, things that we may know about already because we’ve lived them firsthand. And yet, we’ll always patiently sit and hear the same stories from others because we know how emotionally difficult life can become for everyone.

“Sideways” builds itself on this premise and presents realistically complex characters, people who lie to each other on a regular basis without ever revealing the truth, people who fall in and out of love while knowing full well that their feelings may not last. There are also plenty of great comical moments, but, as it is understood, only because so many funny things happen in real life.

Miles (Paul Giamatti) is a miserable divorcee and a novelist whose latest (and first) work is left forever bouncing around publishing companies. Beyond his writing, one of his few apparent talents is his discriminating palate, which gives him an impeccably encyclopedic knowledge of fine wines. Unfortunately, it’s a trait that has not brought him out of depression; it has led him to borderline alcoholism. His best friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church), a has-been actor, is getting married in a week, so they both decide to take one last road trip across California’s expansive wine country, sampling a variety of vineyard tastes with a little golf on the side. Along the way, Jack meets a young woman named Stephanie (Sandra Oh) and immediately begins a sexual escapade with her, figuring that his bachelor life needs one final swing. Meanwhile, Miles struggles to connect to an old friend, Maya (Virginia Madsen), finding himself too nervous to further their relationship.

“Sideways” is all about its characters and creates interesting parallels: Miles is someone who is free to do whatever he wants in life but keeps himself firmly tethered to his past and his melancholy, even when people try to reach out to him. Jack, on the other hand, is weighted by the responsibility of marriage but lives his life with total disregard to everyone else. Seeing these two personalities bounce off each other is pure delight, and as they learn more and more about themselves, so too does the audience learn to care for them.

Of course these wonderful aspects would be practically useless if they didn’t have fine actors backing them up, and “Sideways” delivers in spades. Paul Giamatti, patron saint of the awkward, sheds an unfounded “character actor” image by capably carrying a fully rounded movie as the lead actor. Then there is Church, who represents the very essence of a used-to-be actor that you barely recall from old TV reruns (he was on “Wings,” remember?) but gives a truly surprising turn as a three-dimensional personality.

Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh are caught in a similar situation: Madsen approaches Maya with wise trepidation in pursuit of a new romance with Miles; meanwhile, Oh perfectly captures Stephanie as totally naïve to Jack’s words and actions.

Occasionally, after presenting a series of truly traumatic circumstances, the film changes gears and presents a series of comical ones, scenes that honestly feel incongruous to the tone of the rest of the film. Although they are hilarious at face value, it may take a few moments to understand just why they would put them in.

“Sideways” functions and matures along with its characters; here, it understands that it has presented a series of “downer” moments. Like a good friend, the film tries to lift our spirits by telling a few good jokes to keep us laughing.

“Sideways” takes a step back from life itself to discover just how precious it is, and finds it to be a wide spectrum of emotion without compromise, full of happiness, anger, self-loathing, stupidity, love and everything else. Working as a casual antidote to sappy romance films, deafening action flicks and overly weepy dramas, “Sideways” refuses to boil anything down to simplistic terms and consequently crafts a thoroughly engaging tale that becomes one of the finest films of the last year.