For good and for bad, Bottle Shock takes its style as well as
its substance from the '70s. It gets some mileage from its Doobie Brothers
soundtrack and sprawling, Robert Altman-esque approach to storytelling, just as
it loses ground with its rust-colored fashions, formlessness, and blithely
exploitative sexism. Trouble is, it's too rambling and digressive to feel
focused, yet too calculating to feel as observational and natural as a good
Altman flick.
The story centers on the 1976 "judgment of
Paris," when a British wine-shop owner operating in France (played with
impeccably dry snobbery by Alan Rickman) organized a blind taste-test pitting
French wines against California up-and-comers. Director and co-writer Randall
Miller builds up to the event in fits and distracted spurts; as with his
previous film, Marilyn
Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School, he packs in the characters and side plots,
to distracting, diluting effect. Bill Pullman plays a successful lawyer turned
failing vintner; if he defaults on his latest loan, he'll lose his vineyard.
Chris Pine (Kirk in J.J. Abrams' upcoming Star Trek film) is his son, a crude surfer-boy out to
prove his worth. Meanwhile, proud, poor local wine savant Freddy Rodríguez
works for Pullman while secretly creating his own vintage. And while Pine and
Rodríguez are best friends, they wind up competing for the favors of Pullman's
sexy intern, Rachael Taylor.
Miller clearly saw some appeal in the
real-life story's strong personalities and snobs-vs.-slobs
dynamic—through his lenses, virtually everyone in Napa is a gap-toothed,
overall-wearin' country hick made good, and he repeatedly returns to the
contradictions of Pullman and Pine's refined oenophilia and their ruthlessly
competitive father-son boxing matches. But he's distracted by such details, and
few of his digressions are particularly interesting, let alone relevant. He
loves stereotypes and stereotype-busters, but
can't reconcile the two—thus, Pine is dubious and dumb, except when he
isn't, whereas Taylor is intelligent and driven, yet mostly around to serve as
a sexual prize for everyone who behaves admirably.
Bottle Shock has picked up some extra
attention because Miller is distributing it himself, having failed to secure a
studio release. Which is no great surprise. In spite of the name casting, and
attempts to link the film to the surprise success Sideways (similar only in that it
features a wine snob in California wine country), Bottle Shock is irritating in its failures and clumsy in its
successes—at least the ones not involving Rickman. He enlivens the film
whenever he appears, but one solid top note does not a full-bodied vintage
make.