It is a typically silly fan theory, because if that was the case, there would be no development journey for the character, making the whole story pointless.
Fan theories are often like that: "it's actually all in their head", "its all just a dream". Edgy on the surface, but really negates all the drama and and development of the story.
> the wine is literally the least important factor in the movie
Of course the movie is not "about" wine in the sense of a documentary about wine, but wine is certainly a significant part of the story and the main characters journey.
I've noticed that. I suspect it comes from a lack of tragedies in our entertainment, that we try to invent tragic meanings to stories intended as comedies.
I think the "it was all a dream" or "it's all in their head" sort of fan theories come from a place of denial. If the story is real (even in a plainly fictional movie setting), and a character shows development, learning, growth, and change over the course of whatever happens - that could have repercussions in my life. It is easy to get into a rut of behavior and to steadfastly avoid thinking about all of the things you can and should change in your life. If entertainment shows me people who actually do change based on a need to change something about themselves to become better people, then I am forced to think about that and consider what that means for my life. That could mean that I actually do need to be more considerate, healthier, or whatever it is. Whereas, if the entire story is fake, or a dream, or whatever, then how I act now is the inevitable conclusion of my life, and there is no changing.
It's easier to just hand-wave away any lessons about human behavior and say that it's imaginary.
"It was all a dream," or, "It's all in their head," are easy fan theories to attach to works of fiction because that's what actually happened. The creator of the fiction imagined it in their brain. You can trivially apply it to any fiction without any creativity.
More complicated fan theories rely on the content itself, and thus are going to change from work to work. So people hear "It's all in their head," more.
In Sideways, Giamattis character starts out in a really bad place, but through the events of the story ends up in a (slightly) more hopeful place. Having him kill himself in the end instead would not turn the story into a genuine tragedy, since nothing would really be lost. That would just be a pointless story going nowhere.
Hayden Church' character on the other hand do have something to lose, so his story could have been made a tragedy.
I wasn't familiar with Sideways, but from your description it sounds like I'd call that a comedy being reinterpreted as a farce. Which can be a great story form as well, but maybe it's reached for too often in fan theories because it's the easiest thing to imagine after melodrama.
In my own reading of the movie, while Jack learns nothing and even earns a reprieve, Miles does evolve -- though painfully and at the very end of the movie. He finally lets go of his ex wife, realizing she's definitely out of reach and committed to a new family now that she's pregnant. He also lets go of his book dream, and also the drinking of his prized bottle signals -- albeit in a humorously depressing manner -- his finally letting go of everything that got him stuck.
In my mind his walking up Maya's stairs is a symbol of a hopeful new beginning. Because this is a dark comedy/drama, it's not immediately obvious everything will work out well, but at least there's hope.
Yeah, there are references to death and suicide in the movie, like there is in most fiction about depression. But there's nothing explicit about Miles's fate, and the film ends on an upbeat note ("Because you were wearing your seatbelt!" Jack says to Miles). I've watched the movie 20x and the stuff you list is very liberal interpretation of some scant events.
There's even a sequel to the novel with the same characters.
I'm calling "shenanigans" on this whole "Miles kills himself" meme.
Agreed!
> It’s implied Paul Giamatti’s character kills himself at the end
Uh, the film ends in a hopeful note. Virigina Madsen's character states she enjoyed the book, and he goes to seek her out and is about to knock on her door when the screen fades to black. To me, it is implied she opens the door and at least they become friends again, if not a couple.
I had to check for myself and it really doesn't look that way to me.
https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.72/p2z.144.myftpuploa...
I wrote this a couple years back on Quora when someone asked "why is Miles celebrating alone in the diner?" Maybe we've all felt something like this at one point.
>> Imagine you’ve been living the last few years with some crazy hope or dream that all the things happening to you are just a fiction and that things are going to turn around. The bottle of wine is a delusional symbol of a life that you’re going to get back — good career, a wife who loves you and wants to have a kid with you. To be opened on the day it all comes true.
Look at Miles’s eyes as his ex-wife tells him she’s expecting a kid with another man. All the hope and fictitious dreaming comes crashing down — that life was a complete delusion, like when you look yourself in a mirror and see, really see, what your life has become and that all the things you’ve been saving that bottle of wine for, just don’t exist.
Not much left to save that bottle for. No one to drink it with and toast over a fancy dinner. Just take it to the grimy local burger joint, drink in sadness to the life events that passed you by, and savor the sublime, once-in-a-lifetime taste of dreams that are dashed on the roadside.
No it isn't.
Now that I’m the age of the characters in the movie I realize that the wine is literally the least important factor in the movie (and also that it’s implied Paul Giamatti’s character kills himself at the end.) It’s funny that such a small subplot in a feature film can have a dramatic effect on a major industry like wine making.