Sideways (2004) * * * 1/2

Directed by: Alexander Payne

Starring: Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh

Sideways is the story of Miles and Jack, two friends who spend a week in California's wine country. It is supposed to be a bachelor party of sorts for Jack (Church), who is getting married in a week.   But clearly Miles and Jack have two different agendas here. Giamatti's Miles is a failed writer trying to get over a divorce.   He uses the daily tours of wineries as an excuse to keep a buzz going that will keep him from thinking about his reality.   If Miles isn't an alcoholic yet, he is just this side of alcoholism.

Jack is an actor with credits that aren't instantly recognizable.    He was on Days Of Our Lives years ago and does voiceover work in commercials that aren't exactly famous either.    He wants to use this last week of freedom as an excuse to get laid.     Of course, he tells Miles he wants to get him laid also, but Miles' needs come in a distant second.

What occurs here is a moving comedy.   Jack and Miles are guys with addictions they can't seem to shake, even in the presence of two women who respectively love them both.    They are Maya (Madsen), a waitress in a local restaurant fresh from a divorce herself and Stephanie (Oh), a clerk at a winery.   Maya likes Miles and likes the fact that Miles is a writer.    When Maya asks the title of his book, Miles shows his creative bankruptcy by calling it, "The Day After Yesterday."   Maya asks, "So you mean today?"

Stephanie and Jack commence a hot and heavy love affair of their own.   Stephanie falls for Jack, and Jack even convinces himself that he loves her, but for a lecher like Jack, love is just a means to an end.     He is quite shameless in his efforts to get in as much poon as possible before he weds.

Director Payne co-wrote the screenplay with Jim Taylor, with whom he collaborated on the funny Election (1997) and About Schmidt (2002).     Here, they create characters that are interesting without being quirky. Miles is a guy who can't seem to get it together. Jack is a cad.   Maya is literate and thoughtful.   Stephanie is a woman who thinks she found the right guy, but doesn't realize his secret. Movies these days like to pile on the wackiness in characters until they collapse under the weight of the quirks.    Sideways abandons this philosophy by showing rather ordinary people at the mercy of their desires and hungers.

The performances are all the more memorable for not being showy.     All four leads ground their characters quite nicely, so we're not tired of their act by the movie's end.    We wonder where they go from here and we want to know more about them.     That's when you know a movie is a good one.

Oh, and thank God Sideways isn't a talk-a-thon.    There are numerous situations which occur as ways to show where the characters' respective behaviors lead them.    Let's just say that Jack's wallet winds up at a place where it shouldn't be two days before his wedding.     And Stephanie's reaction to the news of Jack's impending marriage would remind some of a UFC cage match.    And the fact that some characters seem to get away with murder while more virtuous ones seem to get the shaft.    Sideways combines all of that in an introspective, thoughtful, passionate way.