Sideways

With Sideways, Alexander Payne and his writing partner Jim Taylor more than fulfill the promise of their brilliantly offbeat earlier films, Election and About Schmidt. In fact, we’re actually more partial to this one because it’s still very quirky yet at the same time eminently accessible. The refreshingly schlubby Paul Giamatti (fresh off American Splendor) plays an aspiring novelist traveling through through Northern California wine country on a weeklong bachelors trip with his libertine buddy Jack (Thomas Haden Church). This is basically a dude road movie, but one with Payne’s outstanding ability to make the American landscape, both natural and manmade, figure as deeply as any human character.