Q'n'D Reviews: Sideways and The Life and Death of Peter Sellers

Double your pleasure, double your fun, two reviews for the price of one!

"Sideways," which I saw this afternoon at the Super Cinemas in Toledo, is a film that is so wonderfully hard to categorize it's a little like a miracle. It's a comedy. But it's also a romance. But it's also a dramatic character study. But it's also...a terrific film, which is all that matters. Stars Paul Giamatti (who finally has a breakout role) as Miles and Thomas Haden Church (Lowell from Wings and the short-lived but much-loved Ned and Stacey) as Jack, friends who hit the road for a wine-tasting tour in the week leading up to Jack's impending wedding. More than that, I should not say, as to spoil any of the journey would be unfair to anyone else seeing the film. I will only add a few simple observations: one, that this is a tremendously entertaining movie, two, that there is a lot of truth and remarkable observation about human nature in here, and three, there is one scene in particular (the one with the car - you'll know which one) that had me laughing loud and long enough that I was almost embarrassed. Almost. Heck, I'm still chuckling right now. If you can, see this one, and soon.

"The Life and Death of Peter Sellers," which aired on HBO tonight (I taped it for Heather), is also a good film, but I'm not sure I can say I enjoyed it. It certainly is an unflinching portrayal of one of the most legendary of cinema actors, and Geoffrey Rush is without question the perfect actor for the role. But I'm not sure the film's subject is one that cried out to be told. Sellers, as the film portrays him, comes off as an overdeveloped child with no emotional handle on his life, who was cruel to everyone around him, and who found no joy in his existence. This all may or may not be true (I'm a big fan of Sellers and his films, but not well read on the man himself), but did it need to be made into a movie? There are no lessons to be taken from this telling of Sellers's life, no angle or path which makes for a compelling narrative. We meet a pretty unpleasent man, spend two hours with him, and the movie is over. What carries us along is Rush's brilliant work in the title role, as he so wholly embodies Sellers, both the good and the bad, that the film is never depressing, though its subject matter is. On the whole, I'm not sorry I watched it, and I acknowledge that it is, indeed, a good movie - I'm just not sure what its goal was.