Upfront on Sideways

I am wondering whether I am the only intelligent film-goer in America who was not totally enchanted by Sideways. I thought it was a good enough film, yes, but I am baffled by the hoopla surrounding it. In the song, "If A Girl Isn't Pretty," from Funny Girl, there's a line: "Everything you've got's about right, but the damned thing don't come out right," and that is how I felt about Sideways. The acting is top-notch, the story is original, the metaphor is effective. But overall, I was disappointed.

For one thing, I found the humor cheap and predictable--drunken friends doing "hey-hey"'s or their equivalent, old jokes we've seen and heard before, nude people in exposed situations, etc. Often, when I see a film, I am the only one laughing. With Sideways, I was often the only one who wasn't laughing. There were times when I felt there should be a laugh track, and I kept waiting for Adam Sandler to appear.

The other reason I was disappointed is quite subjective: I could find nothing to like about the two main characters. I know they are two flawed men doing the best they can and trying to come to terms with their lives during developmental crises. They are supposed to be likeable losers, but to me, they simply came off as caricatures: one an immature, shallow womanizer; the other, an immature, alcoholic narcissist. And though I tried, I could find no basis for the Virginia Madsen character's attraction to the protagonist.

I liked Payne's other films, especially the viciously hilarious, Preston Sturges-like Citizen Ruth, which stars the great Laura Dern, and which I consider one of the very best (and certainly one of the funniest) films of the 90's . Ruth Stoops may have been a burned-out glue-sniffer, but her ultimate plight as a pawn of the culture wars made her a sympathetic character. Miles and Jack, on the other hand--though they take a pretty interesting road trip--have no one but themselves to blame for the emptiness in their boring lives.

Road trip films are a staple of our culture. It would be hard to imagine American filmdom without Easy Rider, Two for the Road, and Thelma & Louise. I'm sure Sideways (a great title, by the way) will go down as one of the great ones, but for me, the line that kept coming to mind was "Are we having fun yet?"