Sideways

This film was seen on February 19 2005 at 7:15pm over at Old Capitol Mall's theatre.

This movie has been playing at the box office for some 17-18 weeks now, which generally is a good sign for a great movie (National Treasure, Spider-man 2, and Garden State last year being 3 examples of long-playing films). I've been putting off going to see it due to it being on the other side of town, however, the trailer looked interesting way back when it previewed, and many a good review has been posted about it. As a result, I trekked to the theatre to see it today in a sleet storm (I also went to see Boogeyman earlier in the day since I was in Iowa City anyway). After all this, the movie was not nearly so grand as I had hoped.

The story is the week long trip of a couple of friends before one friend's marriage--his last bachelor's hurrah basically. Usually I don't go too far into detail for the actual story as I want to avoid giving anything away, so that is as much as I will say, but the trip is the story. It is a journey for each character into who they are, why they are and what they really want. We do learn a lot about these 2 men. Unfortunately, I do not feel that this movie speaks to women very well. I was not greatly moved and once again I felt this movie lacked depth, a depth that I've been trying to find in any recent Hollywood films to no avail.

It is a well-written movie with terrific acting. It is a beautiful journey through gorgeous scenery and the ending is even pleasantly uplifting. It is not, however, a great movie. It wants to be a great movie, but it just couldn't quite make it.

Out of the available rankings (great, good, decent, okay, crummy and terrible), this movie does earn a good. Note that the coveted "great" rating isn't listed as yet since it hasn't been needed this year so far. The pickings don't look good for it to be awarded at all.

Please feel free to comment on this review or on the movie itself at the forum thread devoted to it at this location.