Awful, Awful, Awful film...
I really wanted to like this movie and looked forward to it as our weekly renter. Cracked open a nice bottle of California Pinot - which was the best part of watching this film. Just one person's opinion but I'll offer the following:
I don't think the subject itself is compelling when you're trying to make a commercially viable film. Great story - great subject for an article, great subject for a documentary, but not something that will keep an audience engaged for close to 2 hours.
So - they shoehorned a bunch of crap into the film to keep people interested, but turned the film into a joke as a result. Not sure if this was in the first draft of the script, or if the studio kept adding in material from a filofax of cliches but the dialogue was nothing short of embarassing at times. The plot points were tired, the acting was uneven and the tone of the film changed about 3-4 times the way through.
I'll offer the following:
- Never got any of the history behind how these wineries were established, what the philosophy was, or really anything about how the wine was made aside from spiritural pontifications about soil and air. So its just luck? Bill Pullman's character suffered the biggest injustice here. He's playing the frustrated dad that's trying to save the family farm. But why is he such a talent in the first place? Why is he a visionary?
- Why is Eliza Dushku in this film? Interesting that she gets a special mention in the credits (actually structure of credits made me wonder if this film was shopped for TV before going feature?). Super hot tomboy that owns the local bar... but a really terrible acting job. I'm sure she's fine in another role - tone of her role in this one brought the film down not up. Hopefully the choice to add her was not just for eye candy.
- Don't like the shoehorned half arsed love triangle. Forced, not believable, and not enough time to get deeper into it.
- Freddy's character - more could have been done here. Same with Miguel Sandoval. I get that you're both talented and smart from the beginning. I don't need 2 scenes of listening to Maria Callas to underline the point. I don't need a useless scene about racial tension (breaking the antenna, truckdriver etc). to know that its tough to establish yourself as a winemaker in the 1970's when you have simple beginnings. Truckdriver scene seemed shoehorned in to add some 'action'. Goofy bantering during scene was awful.
- Dialogue was painful at times. Not natural, cliche ridden. Every scene trying to be something powerful.
- Bill Pullman freaking out in his old workplace. Mismatched from his character established earlier in the film. Turned him from possible visionary into a freakzoid. BTW - If someone offered me a glass of wine taken from a broken bottle (top lopped off with a samurai sword!) I'd be more worried about internal organ damage from broken glass than how it tastes.
- Stereotypical Frenchmen/women. Made me wonder if the producers had a discussion about putting them in berets and stripey shirts with toothpicks hanging out of the corners of their mouths.
- Worst scene in the film - the 'guess the vintage' scam in the bar. The biker mouthing 'how did he do that?' was unintentionally hilarious and painful. If the intent was to show that the average Joe in Napa in the 70's was a wine freak it did not come across. An example of playing something up for drama that just was not that interesting to begin with.
- How far is the beach from Napa? 2-3 hours? Was surf culture really that established in Napa in the 70's?
- Chris Pine's wig - worst ever. Forgiveness if its his own hair.
- French tasting scene at end. Very obvious its shot in Napa. Hats off to the California Citroen club for scrounging every 2CV in the area for the film though...
My advice - skip this and rent Sideways again. Or watch a bunch of old episodes of Falcon Crest...