Sideways

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I'm not as much of a wine snob as Miles in Sideways (at least I hope I'm not), but I have often enjoyed the ritual wine tasting that is portrayed in the film. I've been to the Santa Ynez Valley and visited many of the same wineries and the wonderful restaurants, so in some ways, Sideways is very familiar. But it's not really about wine tasting and travel.

In Sideways we see Miles and his friend Jack as they head up to Santa Barbara County to have a guys’ week of fun. Miles is a middle school English teacher who wants to write. He has a manuscript for a novel that is being rejected by publishers. He is still trying to bounce back after a divorce. Jack is an aging actor, once a regular (but not a star) on TV, now limited to voice-overs in commercials. Jack is to be married in a week (which is the reason for their trip?a sort of prolonged bachelor party).

It’s not long before we see that these two guys are both struggling in their lives. Miles is depressed and needy. He needs to see himself as a step above the average person. He’s dissatisfied with his life, so he writes unpublishable novels and enjoys being a wine connoisseur. He is in his element while teaching Jack the right way to taste wine. Then he can feel superior.

Jack has his own set of needs. He needs to be recognized. He needs to know that the fame he once had hasn’t passed. He trades off that fame, thinking that those who think that it makes him special actually love him.

While on their trip, they connect with Maya and Stephanie, two local women, one a waitress, the other who works in a wine tasting room. The four of them begin friendships that are wrongly based in Miles’ and Jack’s neediness. The relationships begin to grow?Jack and Stephanie sexually, Miles and Maya more intellectually. But because the men are both essentially selfish (and dishonest), the relationships are doomed.

It should be noted that Jack and Miles behave very badly. As we watch, it doesn’t take long to label both of them as losers (so much so, that it raises a question as to why Stephanie and Maya would be attracted to them), but underneath that, we get a glimpse of vulnerable people who deeply need (as we all do) to be loved.

Getting back to wine tasting. One of the things that I enjoy when visiting wineries is the chance to discover something new and wonderful. Maybe a new winery. Maybe a great bargain. Maybe a special wine? and I’m a sucker for a well-done wine. In Sideways as we visit a few wineries, we discover a wonderful set of metaphors?and I’m also a sucker for a well-done metaphor.

The whole experience of wine tasting can be compared to the building of a relationship. At first we may judge things by their outward appearance as we would consider a wine’s color and clarity. We begin a relationship tentatively as we do with the first experience of breathing in the wine. Then we start looking deeper as when we swirl the wine and smell again. Finally we are ready to drink of the full relationship and discover what is there.

There is a brilliant scene in the film where Miles and Maya are sitting on a porch in what should be developing into a romantic moment. They begin to talk about wine and share a pair of beautiful soliloquies. Miles, when asked why he is so attracted to Pinot Noir, speaks of how frail the grape is and about the care and nurture that it needs before it can become good wine. Maya, when asked what she likes about wine, rhapsodizes about the life of wine and the way it continues to live and change moment by moment. The things they say are true about wine. But as we listen to them, we also know that the things they are saying is not so much about wine as it is about themselves. More, it is also true about the relationship that both of them crave.

As much as I enjoyed this film for the memories it stirred in me of past trips to the same wineries, I enjoy it much more for the way it speaks to our need to enter into life and into relationships in such a way to experience the fullness of our lives.

At their first winery, after Miles has led Jack through all the preliminaries, Jack, growing impatient asks, “When do we drink?� Then Miles says, “Now.�

Drink up.

Finding Neverland

The story of Peter Pan has become one of the most loved children’s stories. It captures something of the essence of childhood imagination and innocence. For children, Peter Pan is a celebration of the fantastic. For adults it is a reminder of a simpler life we have left behind, but for which we occasionally yearn. It is also a story that calls us all, young and old, to believe in things beyond our reality. Peter

Pan is a gift from the pen of author and playwright James M. Barrie nearly a century ago. Now, in Finding Neverland, we not only get a glimpse of the Peter Pan story, but also discover the man behind the story.

Finding Neverland shows Barrie’s relationship with the Llewelyn Davies children while he is writing the play, Peter Pan. The childless Barrie, in a marriage that is beginning to break down, meets a widow, Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, with four young sons. The boys are still in grief over the loss of their father, especially the boy named Peter. Through spending time with them, playing with them, encouraging them to expand their imaginations, he serves as a bit of a combination of surrogate father and child psychologist. He also manages to expand his own imagination as he works on a play about a boy who won't grow up (which actually really is about what it means to grow up.)

We get an inkling that the idea of Neverland (a place filled with adventures and fairies) was a part of Barrie’s emotional survival after the death of an older brother. It was his imaginary escape when things were too hard to bear. As he interacts with the boys, they get a peek at what Neverland is.

Neverland is, of course, only in the imagination. Is it better to escape to the imagination or to face reality? No doubt a combination of the two is necessary, but we are often told as we grow into adulthood, that we need to put aside those imaginary worlds and learn to live in the real world.

But Neverland is more than an issue of imagination versus reality: it is also a matter of belief. One does not merely imagine Neverland. Neverland requires belief?not so much an intellectual assent as a complete emotional acceptance. When we allow ourselves to believe in such a place as Neverland (or perhaps the Kingdom of God), we open the door to a reality that is beyond us. To find such a new reality is among the greatest gifts of childlikeness and is a blessing that only an adult can truly appreciate.

Vera Drake

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Vera Drake is a wonderful woman, almost saintly. This dowdy, middle-aged housewife spends the day with a smile on her face. She stops by the apartment of an invalid neighbor on her way home to make him tea. She loves her family. She invites a shy, lonely neighbor to share a meal with them (and hopes to set him up with her very shy daughter.) She does whatever she can do to help someone in need.

This pattern is established again and again in about the first third of the film before we are shown the secret side of Vera, not known even to her family. Although it’s not really another side, because she is still doing what she can to help someone in need. Only this form of helping is by providing illegal abortions.

Set in the early 1950s, when abortion was still very much a criminal offense, Vera Drake is a very personal look at the issue. The film really doesn’t consider the issues we’ve made so black and white as “pro-life� or “pro-choice.� Instead it shows us Vera as a humane and gentle person, even when she does what many people (and certainly society of that time) consider an unspeakable crime.

For those who do not immediately reject Vera for what she is doing, it is obvious that she understands what she does as kindness. She brings the same joyousness and light spirit that marks the rest of her life into the apartments of her patients. She does it not for money, but to help those in trouble.

The film and the superb performance by Imelda Staunton put a human face on the issue. When Vera is arrested and her secret becomes known, we see a cost, not merely in the threat of prison, but a personal cost that is paid within her family. Some will no doubt think the price she pays for her action is to low. But others will see Vera’s compassion as a virtue that mitigates against judging her too harshly.

Writer-Director Mike Leigh really doesn't want to engage the philosophical debate about abortion. There is no discussion about whether or not a fetus is sacred life. There is no discussion about women’s control of their own bodies. There is no polemic about murdering babies. Instead, there is a very pragmatic view. Abortions happen, whether legal or not. Some women, those with money and connections, were able even at that time to obtain an abortion legally. Others had only the more dangerous option of people like Vera.

The film is certainly on the side of legalized abortions. It makes that point by first letting us meet and begin to love Vera. Only at that point, do we see her hidden life. But by then it’s too late. We know she is a good person. We are called to see what she is doing as necessary, and since it’s her, maybe even good.

Vera Drake will no doubt raise the hackles of many viewers. But more important, it may also raise questions surrounding the issue of abortion that will invite people to consider the issue in ways other than the black and white manner that is often the case.