Taking place during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, the movie follows the life of Eliska (Ana Geislerova). A medical student in Prague, she and her lover are involved in the Resistance. When the Gestapo discovers their involvement, they’re forced to part ways; he disappears without a word, while she goes off to hide in the countryside village of Zelary with Joza (Gyorgy Cserhalmi), a simple woodcutter from the country who was a patient in her hospital. There is a kind of symmetry in this turn of events; the night before, Eliska saves Joza’s life by offering up her blood for a vital transfusion, and now, by delivering her from the dangers of Prague, Joza saves hers.

In order to elude the suspicion of the friendly but xenophobic villagers, they marry. Although she initially enters this arrangement reluctantly—she is distrusting of Joza and she isn’t accustomed to his extremely rural lifestyle—she gradually falls in love with him and begins to make Zelary her home, rather than just a place for her to lie low until the Nazis forget about her. Actors Geislerova and Cserhalmi artfully and skillfully depict their characters’ relationship as it gradually progresses from the haltingly formal to the faintly resentful to, well, a fairly strong argument in favor of arranged marriages.

Clearly, this fish-out-of-water romance is a well-worn and somewhat predictable formula, but director Ondrej Trojan and writer Kveta Legatova weave such a captivating and convincing story that it doesn’t matter. If anything, the unsurprising plotline serves to create a sense of comfort as the film delves deeper into the intricacies of life in a small Eastern European village during World War II; everyone knows everyone else and, if it weren’t for the very occasional appearance of Nazi soldiers—often accompanied by violence—it would feel as though the picturesque village of Zelary were entirely untouched by the 20th century, let alone the war.

Accordingly, Trojan takes his time, drawing the story out and eschewing the fast-paced action-oriented style of most Hollywood films, while still maintaining the audience’s undivided attention. There are extended moments in this film when the Germans seem far, far away and the bitterest and most dangerous of Eliska’s enemies seem to be limited to that shifty-eyed drunk who lives on the other side of the hill. Once directly confronted by the war, however, all of the villagers quickly come together and even the unlikeliest of heroes come to their neighbors’ aid.

To have given too much away is not really a problem when reviewing this film, but rest assured that Zelary has much more to offer than what is described here. This gem from the Czech Republic is a breathtakingly photographed portrait of the way life in Czechoslovakia—and indeed much of Europe—during that period was so cleanly book-ended by the start and end of the war, revealing just how much wartime could define a stage in a person’s life, but seemingly leave the rest of it fairly untouched.

—Steven N. Jacobs

Sideways

Directed by Alexander Payne

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Writer-director Alexander Payne and co-writer Jim Taylor seemed on a winning streak with Election and About Schmidt: both were inventive and quirky, two qualities their newest collaboration, Sideways, unfortunately lacks.

The film follows Miles (Paul Giamatti), a burned-out teacher and struggling novelist, and his best friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church) on a road trip through California’s wine country organized to make the most of Jack’s last days of bachelorhood. The trip in Miles’ mind is about tasting great wines and in Jack’s is about getting laid as much as possible before marriage shuts him down. Despite their somewhat incredible friendship—they have completely opposing interests, outlooks and goals—the acting is exceptional and Giamatti and Church exude a chemistry that makes their friendship believable and oddly charming.

But sadly, the movie is ultimately worthwhile only for its fine performances. Sideways’ structure is painfully episodic, never allowing audiences to become fully engrossed in its obnoxious characters. Jack has a few funny moments, but more consistently comes off as annoyingly superficial. Miles is filled with self-pity—he suffers from depression without trying to hide it behind a façade of humor—and is utterly unwilling to try to improve his situation. For example, on their trip, Jack and Miles hang out with a waitress named Maya (Virginia Madsen) who’s smart and warm and gorgeous and…into Miles? The plain, bitter, mopey Miles? Give me a break. And how does Miles react to Maya’s interest in him? By feeling more sorry for himself, a characterization flub which might be funny in a Woody Allen movie, but Miles isn’t bitterly sarcastic enough for this to be humorous. Payne then awkwardly reveals a piece of Miles’s family history that “explains” why he’s so depressed in the last minutes of the film. If Payne had introduced this information earlier, it might have really held the film together: Miles’ self-destructive behavior and dreary attitude would be motivated by his past and, therefore, more excusable.

Similarly unexplained behavior on Maya’s part—her unexplained interest in Miles—reflects another broad problem: Payne spends remarkably little time giving us a sense of his female characters—God forbid we lose some of the shots of scenery and endless montages of vineyards to make room for character development. So little time is devoted to his female characters that Payne is forced to use the cheap tactic of writing Maya a soliloquy about “the life of wines” in order to give her supposed spiritual depth.

Maya’s incomprehensible interest in Miles is troubling in that Payne simultaneously seems to celebrate ordinary people like Miles and Maya while being condescending towards them—why on earth would the gorgeous and intelligent Maya want to go out with a bum like Miles? Is it because she’s a lowly waitress, so she couldn’t possibly expect something better?

Also plaguing the movie is its relentless muzak-wishing-it-was-jazz soundtrack. At the movie’s opening, I thought it was for comedic purposes—Payne used awesome over-the-top music to great comedic effect in Election—and that it would go away in a few minutes and a real score would kick in. But the music in Sideways isn’t part of a joke. It’s just bad music and there’s a lot of it in the movie. And that’s really sad and, indeed, makes you wonder if the mysterious cause of Miles’ depression is the shitty music following him around.

I think part of the reason I was so bummed out by this movie (aside from perhaps unfairly high expectations based on Payne’s other work) is because I’m not part of its intended demographic, which I think is really the middle-aged people it’s about. Proof? When Maya asked Miles which wines he had in his collection, Miles replied, “It’s not really a collection. It’s actually more of a small group”—laughs went through the majority of the middle-aged reviewers. The college kids just sat there, confused and praying that in twenty years we don’t find that line funny.

—Geneva Robertson-Dworet