There's an unsaid snobbery against independents that make it to national distribution - overstepping festival screenings to ante up at the real box office. This is also true of wine that oversteps major bodies of water to turn longstanding establishment on its head. Most often they go unsung because they are tragically mislabeled, by expectation or name. Think Charlie Bartlett, or even Juno if it hadn't had the right buzz. Both of these succeed on quirks that would never have been allowed in standard formula productions.
America's got a history with wine - during colonial rum runs the Portuguese discovered prolonged heat and rolling seas led to casks of intensified Madeira wines - with funny color and a great taste still celebrated today. So too Napa valley honed its winemaking to produce a successful American flavor sharply against international expectation. To its credit, Bottle Shock is a celebration of Californian wine growing into its own American dream.
As a hybrid documentary turned drama, Shock is not a comedy, despite some effort, yet is too light-hearted to ever land a heavy drama award. Not quite theater-escaping slow as it builds to the competition, but to expect a fever-pitch comedy is a setup for disappointment. This is loosely based on a true story, after all. The objectives are clearly set on hard labor bringing the finest wine. The dryness of the valley echoes the history of midwestern sensibility.
There's also the problem of wine stores that don't look like Paris, and a French countryside that feels like a let down when it's obviously still California with a sign in French hung on the gate, complete with reused extra in a beret with a cow. Noting budgetary constraints that luckily do not effect production quality, it becomes clear Shock is not going to look like a Merchant Ivory delivery. Instead it satisfies an inspiring and patriotic historical note. Even if cash is short, performances are polished and even. If anything it proves a well acted film can still be pulled off successfully from a shoestring.
There's the required dose of post-hippy Californian girls, and the lonely, dust bowl climate from the perspective of a marauding British wine snob turned American vineyard explorer. His indoctrination to American culture is muted, limited to a quiet inspection of the local KFC bucket as he sits lost in his car.
There are cluttered extra devices that don't need to be there, like the ubiquitous flat tire, or the convenient empty gas tank.
What it doesn't commit are characters with gag-inducing, stereotypical conversation that plods along like a Catholic church wedding. Instead of following common dialog clichés, Shock commits the mistake in the opposite direction. It reaches for almost no conversational commentary at all, leaving the scenes to speak for themselves and the layman to root for the underdog and enjoy the tasting. As the film progresses, this works well to narrow the story on the wine contest itself. It's a nostalgic reminiscing set to pretty countryside sunsets and feel good rock theme music. There's not enough room (or permission from the real Steven Spurrier) to make a go of historical accuracy beyond the admission that American wines won big and the apple cart was forever overturned. It's hard to tell though, if the closing monolog is odd because it's in character of a stuffed shirt or because the script is driven by uncertainty that a relative connection has been made with the audience.
"Modesty is the virtue of servants," retorts one aspiring winemaker, Gustavo Brambila, played by the likable Freddy Rodríguez who makes the warm glow and free-love, shack-shagging feel almost noble set against the flirty coffee talk and wayward farm girls at dusk.
The cultural clashes are underplayed, something missing from a movie about the appearance of the American pedigree. There are quiet conversations and meaningful music, but the dialog needs to pick up some swerve where the cultural setting doesn't. For a comedy, the swells of music fill in too long where the witty dialogue should be crackling. For a drama, it's an acceptable vehicle for talented performers. Despite ridiculous attention paid to wine huffing and face scrunching, the occasional table dusting catch-up by an unsympathetic, politically ruined British snob is only a small afterthought.
The real prize fighter here is Bill Pullman, who portrays the tense perfectionist who has become so good at winemaking that the textbooks no longer have instructions for the type of perfection he's concocted. While devastated that he's made a mistake, and deeply insecure of his Warren Buffet style fortitude, the French think differently, and are just as pained to find a face-off so puzzling with no easy disqualifiers.
Geriatric fears of speed and fury aside - at least for the sort of affectionado who would be riled about how true Hollywood can't be, this is an inspiring and eventually tender story about a turning point in wine making history. Refreshingly, the plot's a good one - that a band of quiet Californian farmers won the tour de force not by becoming part of the political machine with the disdainful establishment, but by going about their hardworking, Puritanical business, making grapes and enjoying their own good taste.
Labels: Bill Pullman, Bottle Shock, independent film, review
