Sideways

A comedy of anxiety. I love that even most dark comedies have light hearted characters. The difference is that their surrounding story and jokes are darker, but Sideways excels in both in a darker story and character design. What sets Sideways apart is that is unsettingly realistic. The film is so pointed at these characters weaknesses that identification with them is sometimes hard. Every part of Sideways relates back to personal experience. The film is driven by the tick tocks of our nervous system. The best description of Dr. Strangelove I ever heard is that it was a film about the United States nervous system during the Cold War. All the characters, heightened exgerrations, were markers of the fears and insanities of the time. Sideways, I believe, is the personal counterpart to Dr. Strangelove. Someone can be a high student and still relate to the mess of a relationship between Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church. Alexander Payne exemplifies the story by filming it at a close proximity. Small moments have close up shots. It isn't to build up scenes or plots, but to keep everything at a propinquity. The tension between the two friends is the most important part of the tone. The filmmaking is suitable and so are the actors who delve into high-strung personifications. Comedy, always a distant laugh at a situation, comes to close encounters here. For good reason, too.