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SIDEWAYS Showcasing his talent for portraying despicable but lovable men, like Jack Nicholson's selfish retired insurance executive from "About Schmidt" and Mathew Broderick's philandering high school teacher in "Election," "Sideways" gives a searing portrait of middle age.
Arranging a final
hurrah for his engaged best friend and former college roommate, Miles (Giamatti)
treats Jack (Thomas
Hayden Church)
to what he assumes will be a laid back vacation in Sonoma sipping wine and
playing. Jack, a washed up soap star, has other things in mind. Intending
to cut loose and get laid, Jack attempts to bring his sad sack friend
along for the ride. Playing off each other wonderfully, Miles and Jack form two sides of a gruesome image of grown men. On the one hand there is Jack, the over-aged frat boy who thinks only with his dick and Miles, the mopey, at-times obnoxious intellectual, whose failed marriage and career have left him lonely and lost. Thrown together, their personalities collide for wonderful comedy. Whether arguing about the virtues of wine (Jack wants to drink it and Miles wants to savor it) or sex, they're actions and ideas prove fertile ground for an examination of what it means to be an adult. Working off of a script with incredibly rich characters, Payne constantly comes back to the theme of wine. Drawing metaphors and parallels to the ways in which wines, like people, are cultivated and appreciated, "Sideways" draws its drama and comedy from the same source. It mocks the snobbery and idiocy of wine appreciation while highlighting the ways in which the experience exposes certain truths about life.
"Sideways"
succeeds where so many comedies fail. Payne shows once again that he
understands the funniest things in life are often the saddest and
"Sideways" proves that comedies never has to pander to stupidity or shy
away from drama.
Surprisingly, this sly update on "When Harry Met Sally," which examines a missed relationship friends and lovers at various points over the course of seven years, is heartwarming and highly entertaining. Ditching lowbrow humor and trite jokes for good dialog and textured characters, "A Lot Like Love" packages it's earnest, albeit expected, tale in a welcome package. One of the chief revelations in "A Lot Like Love" is Amanda Peet. Peet, who's been outshining top billers in supporting roles in both good and bad films (see "Something's Gotta Give" or "Igby Goes Down" for the former and "The Whole Nine Yards" or its sequel for the latter), is long overdue for her own vehicle. Here she proves she's that rare star that has the talent to be a character actress, but the charisma and looks to be headliner. With a depth that longtime romantic comedy sweethearts like Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan lack, Peet flows seamlessly from screwball comedy into drama and manages to give her character, a wayward floater named Emily who transforms from a defiant punk to a maternal photographer over the seven-year timeline of the film, a life outside of the frame. As enjoyable as "A Lot Like Love" is on its own merits, with its subtle approach, Peet raises the entire project with her performance.
For his part Kutcher, who begins the film as a wayward straight arrow college grad named Oliver and evolves into a workaholic dot com entrepreneur, is fine playing second fiddle to Peet's Emily. Putting aside his trademark frat boy raucousness, Kutcher is fine, though he doesn't bring much to the table. With its Gen X take on Rob Reiner's classic romantic comedy, in which Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan play a pair of friends whose relationship evolves and devolves into a romantic one over the course of many years, "A Lot Like Love" maintains its gimmicky 'just missed' premise as its two star crossed lovers keep colliding into one another at the wrong time. After a chance meeting on a plane from L.A. to New York City, Oliver and Emily wind up joining the mile high club and then spending a lengthy day together in Manhattan. After they part ways - he gives her his phone number with the promise that when she calls him in seven years his life will be on track with a good job and the beginnings of a stable family - the film follows their various reconnections through the years. And, as their lives come together and fall apart, they continually turn to each other for support. Watching the characters grow up as the relationship itself grows up, is what sets "A Lot Like Love" above most of the generic fare that populates its genre. While these characters aren't incredibly complex, and while their story isn't all that different than so many other attractive couples who've walked off into the Hollywood sunset, the story is tweaked just enough to make it significantly more palatable than the dearth of romantic comedies out there.
Certain to be the
kind of film fans will want to watch again and again, "A Lot Like Love"
proves a fine, light welcome to summer.
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