Sideways

A coming of age film for the middle aged. Like all coming of age moments this one also involves alcohol - wine. Two friends embark upon a last week of freedom trip through the wine country of California, before one of them is about to get married at the end of the week.

Alexander Payne, the director seem to specialize in lonely men searching for meanings in life, usually before they are about to get in to a relationship or after they are suddenly and unexpectedly freed of one. I am talking about Sideways and his directorial venture before that, About Schmidt. Personally, the film strikes a chord with me because California's wine country is one of my eternally favorite landscapes. While living there we had spent many a weekend driving and wine tasting in the numerous wineyards that dot the valley. It is a well-kept(or well known, whatever you prefer) secret of California, that behind the busy facade of Bay Area or LA, a few miles is all that require to take you in to another country - the rolling valleys of wines, wineyards, grapes and a country lifestyle. You go sideways from the busy main stream and you are in an enchanted place, maybe it'll help you to rediscover your self.