A Blue Movie in a Red State

Not that kind of blue movie.

Blue as in “blue” state: A failed novelist and a sex-crazed mediocre television actor. California. Wine. Marijuana. Premarital sex. Extramarital sex. Interracial sex. Penises. Gratuitous mockery of W. and Rummy (on the TV when he goes to get the wallet). Intellectual conversation about books and wine. OK, there was golf--golf is pretty red state. But there was also absurdist golf course violence, which is certainly not red state.

We liked it. Liked it a lot, in fact. Liked it more than anything we’ve seen since we can remember. Laughed uproariously throughout and discussed for the rest of the evening. It was Sideways, the new film by Alexander Payne who made Citizen Ruth (liked it), Election (liked it), and About Schmidt (didn’t like it at all, though everyone else apparently did).

What’s to like? It’s funny--tears streaming down my cheeks funny. It’s unpredictable--I always know what’s going to happen in movies, but I didn’t (for the most part: I knew he was going home to get the bottle of wine, but I was wrong about where he was going with it). It has unpleasant characters who you end up liking anyways. It has great California shots and excellent acting. It has interesting and intelligent women. It’s the only American buddy film I can think of that isn’t overwhelmed by homosexual panic. Its dialogue consciously balances on the thin line between ridiculously pretentious and exactly right. It’s smart and sympathetic and so funny.

And, like I said, it’s totally a blue state movie (moral ambiguity up the wazoo). But there we were, in a strip mall multiplex just off the freeway right smack in the middle of a red state--in a roomful of happy moviegoers (except for the couple next to us who left ten minutes into the movie) (but S thinks that was because I had asked them if they could move over so that instead of having an empty seat on either side of them, there would be two empty seats on one side for us to fill) (but really they were just red state morons).

Still, as I’ve been saying to anyone who will listen, things are a lot more purple out here than it may seem.