Review of Sideways

Sideways (2004)
6/10
Too Long, Bad Characters
18 October 2004
Warning: Spoilers
Note: contains spoiler information.

I respect that many people apparently liked this movie more than I did (6 out of 10). But I've got to say that it was too long, and it seemed to go from being a nice, quiet pastoral film with drawn-out subtleties to a Hollywoodized, over-the-top, blunt semi-comedy. It failed to appropriately admonish the main characters for their horrible behavior (Jack sleeping around with other women before his wedding, and Miles betraying Jack and then lying to Jack about it to his face). And it didn't seem to know where it was going. There was a bit of sloppy storytelling in this film, and quite a few poorly written scenes, but the worst thing of all was that the main characters had almost no redeeming qualities. In addition, every character outside the main three is 2-dimensional (or one-dimensional), and they go through an entire week-long bachelor party without once mentioning the words "bachelor party." Very odd.

There were some beautiful moments in this film, and also some hilarious moments. I definitely laughed out-loud many times, and halfway through the film thought that I liked it quite a bit. But the ending sucked, and the last half of the film ruined the chance at redemption that either character had. If any good story is about change, I don't believe we saw much change from either character at the end.

6 of 10 for me, 5/10 and 4/10 from the people I saw it with.
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