Sideways
Alexander Payne, 2004, USA, Colour, 127 mins, Certificate: 15
Does the man makes the wine, or the wine makes the man?
This is only one of the many everyday philosophies/lifesaving tools this film encourages you to ponder.
A heartwarming, achingly funny and at once sweetly melancholic character study that plays out as an intimate experience – one of the truly unforgettable, most fulfilling ones of your whole life.
A feelgood masterpiece that was nominated for five Oscars and won the one for Best Adapted Screenplay, it features four almost impossible to put into words, class act performances (by Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh) and one of the most intoxicating monologues that have ever graced the big screen.
Ageing wonderfully, like a good bottle of wine, it became an absolute must-see again as a survival kit during the pandemic, and as such, in May last year, it toped Indiewire´s ever evolving, ever expanding list of the Best Comedies of the 21st Century.
Will you stay if we order Merlot?
Because we most probably will as we couldn´t waste the opportunity to screen Sideways without a side of wine tasting and teamed up with 161 Food+Wine to offer you a truly immersive experience: a Wine Tasting Package of 3 Small Glasses (125ml) of carefully selected wines!
Cheers!
“Moving away from his native Nebraska for the first time onto what proves to be even more fertile soil in the wine country of California’s central coast, Alexander Payne has single-handedly restored humanism as a force in American films…” Todd McCarthy, Variety
★★★★★ “Alexander Payne is one of America’s most exciting filmmakers... He and co-writer Jim Taylor… [are] not concerned with heroes, just people: small people, bruised people, rumpled people – people like Miles (an Oscar-deserving Paul Giamatti), a depressed, divorced wannabe novelist, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of wine but can’t even remember how old his mother is.” Dan Jolin, Empire
“Sweetest, funniest, most humane movie I’ve seen all year.” Peter Rainer, New York Magazine (Vulture)