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Directed by: Alexander Payne

Cast: Paul Giamatti, Thomas Hayden Church, Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh

One will definitely come across many people who drink a lot of different wines daily not knowing whats the difference and why they drink it for. The main character Miles (Paul Giamatti) knows and can easily identify any type of kind of wine from the other by merely smelling or taking a sip. This movie is as classic and sweet as the wines mentioned by Miles in this movie.

There are two protagonists in this film. Miles, a depressed failed novelist and a substitute teacher is still trying to come to terms with the break-up of his marriage two years before, while Jack (Thomas Haden Church) is a fairly simple, straightforward actor scheduled to marry his wealthy Armenian bride at the end of his holiday trip with Miles to California’s wine country. While on holiday it becomes clear that the men have different expectations from their trip. Jack intends to enjoy his Bachelor life for the last time before his wedding, while Miles, a serious wine buff, merely wants to enjoy the wines he comes across. However, Miles’ plans are changed when he meets Maya (Virginia Madsen) an intelligent and smart waitress whose taste in wine was as good as Miles.

This surely is one of Alexander Payne’s better film and he handles every character quite well and with ease. Paul Giamatti deserves all the praise he can get for a role which saw him totally mature as an actor and at no point did he go overboard with his character. Thomas Hayden Church’s career defining role was a good one for this film, although i don’t think he can handle any other character as he did with this one. Virginia Madsen looked great. She needed a good strong character to boost her acting career and this was just it. The only slight disappointment was Sandra Oh who had a very skeletonic character with no depth at all.

This movie is a fine example of strong performances supported with good character development which makes this film enjoyable to watch.