Shock the Bottle, Not The Monkey

And so we find ourselves in the second Dead Zone of the year - that odd period when the summer blockbusters are behind us but the winter awards season has not yet begun, and so we have but a tepid smattering of also-rans with which to amuse ourselves. It is, in other words, the perfect moment to go back and get caught up on those smaller summer hits you just haven't had time for. Like Bottle Shock, a charming festival entry that was one of the few films this summer to receive actually independent distribution.

Bottle Shock is being unfairly compared to Sideways. I can understand why people would make this comparison since they're both about wine, but it's sort of like comparing Blade Runner to The Transformers because they're both about robots. Where Sideways was a vicious little meditation on the emptiness of a culture populated by those bereft of soul, Bottle Shock is a feel-good dramady, loosely based on actual events the way I, Robot was loosely based on Isaac Asimov. The central event in this case is the Judgment of Paris, a 1976 wine tasting in France where California wines wound up taking the day.

At heart an underdog story, Bottle Shock spends a pleasant enough 110 minutes lovelingly caressing it's working class heroes in a remarkably authentic late 70s Napa Valley, the rugged wilderness that's just a quick jaunt up the interstate from San Francisco. After introducing us to our struggling band of plucky individualists (lead by an astonishingly ruddy Bill Pullman) who live on the constant edge of financial disaster, we're whisked to Paris, where one Stephen Spurrier (Alan Rickman, as usual oozing equal parts charm and smarm) wants to curry favor with the Parisian wine cartels, and conceives of a blind wine tasting to establish himself both as worldly and a slavish Francophile. By now we know how this story is going to end, even if we don't know the history, but the events that lead us to this conclusion fairly glow with craftsmanship and care.

This leads to the film's one weakness, as it can't decide what it wants to be - part road movie, part love triangle, part working-class-boy-makes good, it bounces between genres like a hyperactive Pong tournament. This tendency to lose focus is softened by the utterly grounded performances and rough-around-the-edges finish of the piece, perfectly capturing the Spartan simplicity of near-wilderness farming that California was known for prior to the age of silicon. As metaphor, however, the film wears its symbols openly and unapologetically on its sleeve. All the villains wear suits; the Napa women wear pants and are named Sam and Joe; and when our dashing young hero finally steps up to do the right thing, it's not out of a sudden epiphany of virtue so much as to avoid being perennially tagged a loser ("Did you realize that Woodstock was seven years ago?" he muses, laying flat on his back in a boxing ring).

Still, at the end of the day these are more tropes than missteps, and if the movie doesn't keep us in the grip of suspense, its lush cinematography and sweeping vistas nicely compliment the bouquet of earnest portrayals. As an exercise in the Commedia dell'Arte of Hollywood, Bottle Shock is well executed and joyful to behold. It won't expand your mind or change your life, but it's fun as a date-night film that will leave you smiling.

–Tovarich

NOTE: Since it is an independent film, Bottle Shock is playing in limited release. Check your local listings!