SIFF Part 9: "Bottle Shock" and closing night gala, plus some final thoughts

A couple of hours after seeing “Fairytale of Kathmandu,” we went down to the Cinerama in Belltown for the 6:30 screening of “Bottle Shock,” directed by Randall Miller and starring Bill Pullman, Freddy Rodriguez, and Alan Rickman. (Miller, Pullman, and Rodriguez attended the screening.) “Bottle Shock” is the story of the events leading up to the 1976 Paris Tastings, in which wines from Napa Valley beat the competing French wines in both the white and red wine categories in a blind tasting. “Bottle Shock” tells the white wine side of the story, with Chateau Montelena’s Bill Barrett (Pullman) and his son Bo (Chris Pine) overcoming internal and external obstacles to get their winning Chardonnay to the tasting. Rickman plays Englishman Stephen Spurrier, owner of a little-patronized Paris wine shop, who organizes the tasting as a means of publicizing his shop. Rodriguez plays Gustavo Brambilla, son of a migrant worker and a natural winemaking genius, who works at Chateau Montelena until he strikes out on his own.

“Bottle Shock” isn’t a bad movie, but I’m not really sure how to judge it because it’s way too mainstream for my tastes. On the plus side, how could one not love the story of the struggling California winemaker who beats the French at their ancestral game? And the movie sure looks good; the wine country is a cinematographer’s best friend. (Of course, I had sentimental reasons for enjoying the swooping helicopter shots of the toast-colored hills of California and the rows of trellised green vines running over them.)

The performances are good overall. Pullman is excellent, showing pain and vulnerability and anger and some intriguing undertones of menace in the character of Bill Barrett. Rickman does his world-weary Englishman act, which he does so well that it’s still fun to see him do it even if you’ve seen him do it before. Pine and Rodriguez provide likeable support, which is pretty much all they’re asked to do.

However, there isn’t enough originality here, or ambiguity, or tension, or irony, to really capture my interest. The dialogue too often runs to clunky exposition. And then there’s the gratuitous scene of the hot young blonde intern (Rachael Taylor) hosing out the grape press while the workers watch, drooling (complete with cheesy rock soundtrack and music-video visual style). Like I said, too mainstream for me.

After the screening, we went to the SIFF Closing Night Gala at the Pan Pacific Hotel (which is conveniently located about four blocks from our apartment). We ended up sharing a table and chatting about film with a young couple named Bridget and Brian, who were Platinum Pass holders and who had seen more than thirty of the films. Sparkling wine was passed, tasty eggplant sandwiches were served, mellow was the buzz, and when we’d had enough, we strolled easily home.

This is only the second non-festival day for us (there were some more screenings on Sunday, but we didn’t go to any of them). I’m expecting to get hit with a post-festival letdown around Thursday when I realize that there are no more movies on my calendar. But it is nice to be done with it, too. This is the first film festival I’ve ever really thrown myself into; we went to twelve films all told, over sixteen days, and while that’s nothing for some truly dedicated festival rats, it was a lot for me. It was almost like being out of town. Laundry went undone, groceries went unbought, meals out outnumbered meals in. (Bridget told me that she and Brian wound up skipping some screenings they had intended to attend because, as she put it to him, “I just want to eat a real dinner tonight. Like, with a fork.”) And keeping up with this blog has been tougher than I expected it would be, although posting reviews has been a great way to clarify for myself what I think about the films I’ve seen.

Wish us luck with our re-entry into the ordinary world. I may take a little break from blogging as well as film...but you never know; I may not be able to stay away!