The Music Makes the Mood

There's a lot to like in Sideways...I think part of its magic is that it ends up feeling like a very powerful story and you can't quite figure out how it GETS there(but it does.) Minor incident after minor incident piles up and the human behavior is at once hilarious, sad and sometimes quite heartless(on Jack's part, always, but also in how the waitress so unfairly bans Miles from her life --for Jack's sins -- just after they have had a romantic breakthrough.)

I watched it again the other night and I decided that the musical score does a LOT to maintain the mood of the film and to make it powerful.

Its a knid of light, airy jazz for much of the picture, that conjures up a sense of "jaunty comedy" in the early scenes and that also captures the sun-dappled escape of the Central California coast and inland wine country. We FEEL how good this particular road trip could be, for any of us. There is also kind of a main theme with a melody that is rather comic and wistful at the same time.

But also...and especially as the film goes on...the music turns quite sad, an echo of the lonliness and failure of Miles himself near the end of the film. I am thinking of the music over the high shot of his car departing the wedding site(he goes left, everyone else goes right) and his melancholy drinking of his best wine in a burger joint.

The music stays sad and matches the wintry wetness of Santa Barbara in winter as Miles makes his final drive to a possible...POSSIBLE...happy ending. The visuals offer no real ending(its a "Sopranos" ending), but the music offers hope.

A great score helps make this a great movie.