Sideways hit me as a very plausible plot: a best man treating his best friend to a weeklong jaunt before his wedding. This happens often in movies and in real life. It is what happens during these outings and like "Very Bad Things", not always are these outings as fun as they were expected. But that doesn't excuse unbelievably transparent and formulaic scenes trying to appear as something they are not.
In terms of the believability: Miles seems intelligent and informed about what he likes, but it is obvious he is very mild-mannered, afraid and depressed. I think we all know someone like him. His friend, Jack, is a selfish, self-centered, instant gratification type of guy who knows he is attractive and charismatic which when coupled with a general lack of intelligence and a good dose of boorishness is a dangerous thing.
Maya is great. She is patient; she genuinely likes Miles in that female caring for a broken child sort of way, and could grow to actually love him. Miles is lovable - he seems innocent and incapable of actually hurting someone maliciously. That being said, Miles' behaviour stealing from his mom/running away from her on her birthday seems incongruous and I personally cannot understand why that scene was included. There is a deleted scene of Miles hitting a dog that linked to the stealing behaviour, but to include one and not the other seemed to not create whatever kind of case the director had in mind (Miles had a dark side? Would he become Darth Miles later? Or was it to show that we all have an ugly side to us what a revelation.) Stephanie is interesting. I am not a Sandra Oh fan I find her smug at all times and cannot shake it. Her letting Jack get close to her daughter in all of 24 hours was bizarre but happens all the time as women look for surrogate fathers. And Jack did treat the daughter amazingly lovingly, which is the "good" side of Jack (developing inversely to Miles' retreat from the "bad" side in terms of the pacing of the movie). But he mislead her, and she embarrasses all single moms by the way she was taken in. She must protect her daughter first and she didn't, but sadly this happens all the time too. Her hitting him is not justified she could have been arrested, and then what would have happened to Sienna? Stephanie is selfish and her and Jack were a good couple as they put sex before anything and everything else and recognized in each other the snakes that they both were.
The scene with the waitress and the husband no, it didn't seem that there was any point except to serve as a catalyst for Jack's "turnaround" if he indeed had one. But then, it was interesting to note how that waitress was the one dowdy character in the film and it was assumed by Jack that it would be "grateful" sex, but that she was the only one married (while all the other good looking people were divorced). It was also an added twist that there house was a wreck as the husband was gross and they both seemed to use her cheating as input to their sex lives. She just didn't seem that way, did she? But then, so what?!
And that brings me to my conclusion so what. This movie had nothing of real consequence to say, nothing to learn, nothing to really feel strongly about, nothing new. Had this film been made in the '70's, then perhaps it would have been more groundbreaking as these kinds of friendships and trips and lazy events were just budding. The director even comments on how he wanted to have a '70's feel to the movie. Too bad he didn't make it then. Apart from the texture of the film which I enjoyed and some of the frames, generally, the film said absolutely nothing we didn't already know, and it even fails as a "Dumb and Dumber" for the divorced, 40's set. I felt like the director had watched "Very Bad Things" a thousand times and wanted to make a similar movie but set it in something really out there, like a wine-tasting tour. Apart from the wine influence, the rest of the film is mundane, predictable, and frankly, insulting to our intelligence. Nothing smart here. It seems like the director made a supposedly sophisticated movie for the masses that the masses would "get" and feel great about "getting". Does he think that we are that dumb? In the Special stuff DVD, he seemed as smug and "holier-than-thou" as Sandra Oh Oh yeah, they're married. That explains it.
In terms of the believability: Miles seems intelligent and informed about what he likes, but it is obvious he is very mild-mannered, afraid and depressed. I think we all know someone like him. His friend, Jack, is a selfish, self-centered, instant gratification type of guy who knows he is attractive and charismatic which when coupled with a general lack of intelligence and a good dose of boorishness is a dangerous thing.
Maya is great. She is patient; she genuinely likes Miles in that female caring for a broken child sort of way, and could grow to actually love him. Miles is lovable - he seems innocent and incapable of actually hurting someone maliciously. That being said, Miles' behaviour stealing from his mom/running away from her on her birthday seems incongruous and I personally cannot understand why that scene was included. There is a deleted scene of Miles hitting a dog that linked to the stealing behaviour, but to include one and not the other seemed to not create whatever kind of case the director had in mind (Miles had a dark side? Would he become Darth Miles later? Or was it to show that we all have an ugly side to us what a revelation.) Stephanie is interesting. I am not a Sandra Oh fan I find her smug at all times and cannot shake it. Her letting Jack get close to her daughter in all of 24 hours was bizarre but happens all the time as women look for surrogate fathers. And Jack did treat the daughter amazingly lovingly, which is the "good" side of Jack (developing inversely to Miles' retreat from the "bad" side in terms of the pacing of the movie). But he mislead her, and she embarrasses all single moms by the way she was taken in. She must protect her daughter first and she didn't, but sadly this happens all the time too. Her hitting him is not justified she could have been arrested, and then what would have happened to Sienna? Stephanie is selfish and her and Jack were a good couple as they put sex before anything and everything else and recognized in each other the snakes that they both were.
The scene with the waitress and the husband no, it didn't seem that there was any point except to serve as a catalyst for Jack's "turnaround" if he indeed had one. But then, it was interesting to note how that waitress was the one dowdy character in the film and it was assumed by Jack that it would be "grateful" sex, but that she was the only one married (while all the other good looking people were divorced). It was also an added twist that there house was a wreck as the husband was gross and they both seemed to use her cheating as input to their sex lives. She just didn't seem that way, did she? But then, so what?!
And that brings me to my conclusion so what. This movie had nothing of real consequence to say, nothing to learn, nothing to really feel strongly about, nothing new. Had this film been made in the '70's, then perhaps it would have been more groundbreaking as these kinds of friendships and trips and lazy events were just budding. The director even comments on how he wanted to have a '70's feel to the movie. Too bad he didn't make it then. Apart from the texture of the film which I enjoyed and some of the frames, generally, the film said absolutely nothing we didn't already know, and it even fails as a "Dumb and Dumber" for the divorced, 40's set. I felt like the director had watched "Very Bad Things" a thousand times and wanted to make a similar movie but set it in something really out there, like a wine-tasting tour. Apart from the wine influence, the rest of the film is mundane, predictable, and frankly, insulting to our intelligence. Nothing smart here. It seems like the director made a supposedly sophisticated movie for the masses that the masses would "get" and feel great about "getting". Does he think that we are that dumb? In the Special stuff DVD, he seemed as smug and "holier-than-thou" as Sandra Oh Oh yeah, they're married. That explains it.