Highly overrated

Rating: 4/10 (19 July 2006)

A year later and I'm still mad at the Academy because of their decision to give Clint Eastwood another couple of Oscars. Martin Scorsese is a master and 'Sideways' was obviously last year's greatest film (of course, ignored by stupid Oscar voters who cannot recognize subtle work! isn't it time to reduce the actors' branch to the half?!). The Academy's fondness for this overly sentimental, predictably manipulative, cheap tricks film is absolutely not understandable. The film has some beautifully shot, stylish moments, it shows that Clint has become a good craftsman and develops a good use of space but let's face, the film doesn't lacks depth. It's just a sentimental story (with an extremely successful third act, a working second act and an absurd first act). The film's performances simply don't lie on a terrific ground. All the characters are one-sided. Take Maggie - she's the angel who fights to escape the world where she's the poor girl of an unloving mother. To make us feel for her, writer Paul Haggis wrote that awfully unfair scene where her family comes to visit her simply to get her money. Even if that was their goal, the scene wasn't logical at all because they showed it so brutally and after all, I think that Maggie would need them and wouldn't do what she did. And Hilary's performance, though a really very good one, couldn't even be compared to Imelda Staunton in "Vera Drake" - a film that dared to show us that its lead character isn't simply a good-hearted woman but a woman who didn't even knew in what trouble she's going. And at the end, there's an aspect of the film I understand. It's the suicide at the very end. I can't understand why all the people who loved the film (and loved it obviously because of its sentimental ending) don't get that. There's a conversation when Maggie tells why she wants to die. And I accept her decision. It's maybe the emotional high point of such an emotionally uneven film, with uneven writing and uneven directing. And at the end, I simply want to tell that I don't understand why people are comparing this to Bergman. Bergman's depth and astonishing visuals came out of the characters and in this film everything's on the surface and absolutely as an end in itself. Some good visual moments, solid editing, great acting but both directing and writing took the wrong direction. If you want to be touched, watch "Sideways" - absolutely last year's best film.