A.O. Scott, chief film critic for the NYT, has proclaimed Sideways the most over-rated movie of 2004. But actually, he likes the film; it's his fellow critics he's really targeting.

An excerpt:

 Miles, the movie's hero, has been variously described as a drunk, a wine snob, a sad sack and a loser, but it has seldom been mentioned that he is also, by temperament if not by profession, a critic. ...

In "Sideways," a good many critics see themselves, and it is only natural that we should love what we see. Not that critics are the only ones, by any means, but the affection that we have lavished on this film has the effect of emphasizing the narrowness of its vision, and perhaps our own. It both satirizes and affirms a cherished male fantasy: that however antisocial, self-absorbed and downright unattractive a man may be, he can always be rescued by the love of a good woman. (What's in it for her is less clear.)

There is nothing wrong with entertaining this conceit, and "Sideways" does it artfully enough. And of course, the critics respond to other stories as well. Or do we? For the most part, the groups that did not choose "Sideways" - the Village Voice Poll, for example, and the Washington film critics - selected "Before Sunset" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," both variations on the theme of a moody, cerebral fellow graced by the kind of romantic love he probably doesn't believe in and can hardly be said to deserve. Film critics, for our part, clearly have plenty of self-love to go around.

If you haven't seen Sideways, it's about the California wine country road trip Miles -- an English teacher and aspiring novelist -- takes with his actor buddy Jack before Jack gets hitched.

Miles doesn't project likeability. Early in the film, he steals hundreds of dollars from his mom when popping in for a visit the day before her birthday -- as a little pit stop during the road trip. While he overnights, he doesn't stick around to say good morning, happy birthday and goodbye (if you're going to steal, why not be rude about it, I say!).

Jack is the Oscar Madison of this particular odd couple. He's something of an aging jock/surfer boy. He wants one last frenzied round of casual sex before marriage to the beautiful Christine (question: Why is this apparently wealthy babe, about 15 years younger than Jack, marrying him?)

Here's Scott again:

The contrast between him and his friend Jack is partly the difference between an uptight, insecure epicurean and a swinging, self-deluding hedonist, but it is more crucially the difference between a sensibility that subjects every experience to judgment and analysis and a personality happy to accept whatever the moment offers. When they taste wine, Jack is apt to say "tastes good to me," and leave it at that, whereas Miles tends not only to be more exacting in his judgment ("quaffable but not transcendent," which is about how I feel about "Sideways"), but also more prone to narrate, to interpret - to find a language for the most subtle and ephemeral sensations of his palate.

This makes him, among other things, an embodiment of the critical disposition, and one of the unusual things about "Sideways" is that, in the end, it defends this attitude rather than dismissing it. Yes, the film pokes fun at Miles's flights of oenophile rhetoric - all that business about asparagus and "nutty Edam cheese" - but it defies the usual Hollywood anti-intellectualism in acknowledging that, rather than diminishing the fun of drinking, approaching wine with a measure of knowledge and sophistication can enhance its pleasures. There is more to true appreciation than just knowing what you like.

In one of the film's best-written and most beautifully played scenes, Miles launches into a paean to the pinot noir grape that is also, evidently, an account of himself. Criticism always contains an element of autobiography, and it is not much of a leap to suggest that more than a few critics have seen themselves in "Sideways." (Several have admitted as much.) This is not to suggest that white, middle-aged men with a taste for alcohol are disproportionately represented in the ranks of working movie reviewers; plausible as such a notion may be, I don't have the sociological data to support it just yet. But the self-pity and solipsism that are Miles's less attractive (and frequently most prominent) traits represent the underside of the critical temperament; his morbid sensitivity may be an occupational hazard we all face.

Actually, while they aren't movie reviewers, there are critics in the ranks of Canadian newspapers who, at times, have made numerous references to getting laquered and whatnot. So that partly bolsters Scott's thesis. :)

I haven't seen Before Sunset or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, so I can't say where I think Sideways deserves to be in terms of the great films of 2004.

Scott's criticisms of the film (occasional slack pacing, a little long, "a coy ambivalence about its main characters as its principal flaw") have some merit, but to me, they didn't ruin the quality of my viewing experience.

I would easily rate it eight or nine out of 10 and consider it to be one of my favourite movies of 2004 -- even though when it comes to wine, I'm more Jack than Miles. :)