In 1976, many of California’s Napa
Valley winemakers sent their products to be judged in a blind
taste-test against the most prestigious of French bottles. The
contest was largely thought to be a joke—how could a group of
musky Californians’ wine possibly beat that of sophisticated
cultivators of a product that practically ran through their
veins?—but it soon became a harsh reality-check for the snooty
judges. As Bottle Shock informs us, the Napa Valley
producers won in a landslide, marking an occasion that may not
be widely known of today but was indeed monumental enough to
merit that a bottle of the winning Chardonnay be placed on
display in Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian Institute.
Bottle
Shock tells the story—likely in broad, fictionalized
strokes, but who really cares?—of how the winning wine came to
be. Director Randall Miller, writing with partners Jody Savin
and Ross Schwartz, intimately focuses the action on one of
Napa’s many vineyards at the time: Chateau Montelena. The
establishment is run by Jim Barret (Bill Pullman), a once-banker
who goes into the wine business with a thirst for a quality
product and the help of his adventurous son Bo (Chris Pine).
Montelena is deeply in debt, racking up generous loans from
Jim’s old place of work, where he is painstakingly granted them
by the doubtful new husband of his ex-wife. Jim desperately
needs to churn out a successful bottle to keep Montelena afloat.
Joining he and Bo for the ride are Gustavo Brambila (Freddy
Rodriguez), their son-of-a-migrant-worker employee who is so
attuned to wine that he can blindly identify any bottle’s make
and vintage with a single taste, and Sam (Rachel Taylor), their
attractive viticulture-studying intern.
The movie
also features Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman), the
British-national turned failed French-wine-vendor who organizes
the focal contest. As Bottle Shock would have it,
Spurrier travels to Napa because he has nothing better to do:
his shop is only frequented by a lone American (Dennis Farina)
who milks him for free tastings and he isn’t recognized by any
of France’s great winemakers or wine-critics. The result of his
trip, however, represents a complete and utter surprise for
Spurrier. Not only are the California wines good in his book;
they strike him as being otherworldly. Hence he makes every
effort he can to bring notable tasting-talents to judge them in
his competition, enacting, as history would have it, quite a
groundbreaking occasion.
Yes, in
writing a mere synopsis of the movie, I have spoiled the ending.
But Bottle Shock isn’t the type of picture that requires
any sense of unpredictability to succeed; after about two
minutes of introduction, even viewers who don’t already know
about the story will guess how it concludes. The movie
unashamedly adheres to a feel-good formula and is greatly
successful as a result. Instead of dwelling on matters of
plot—the history that inspired Bottle Shock is enough to
keep it going in a narrative regard—director Miller is able to
enhance the material through small details. While not
uncharacteristically fresh or out of the ordinary, each scene in
Bottle Shock is marked by subtle touches that make it all
the more worthwhile. Take, for example, a rather
conventionally-constructed climactic scene in which Rickman’s
Spurrier is informed that he is only allowed to carry one bottle
of wine onto his France-bound flight from Napa. Instead of
reaching for the overdramatic when Spurrier gleefully informs
the other passengers in line of his plight, handing out his
thirty-or-so surplus containers to those who want to help out
with the competition’s cause, Miller merely rests his faith in
Rickman’s skilled ability to take command of the situation as an
actor. It’s a quiet moment, but one of the most mesmerizing in
the picture, speaking substantively to the collaborative nature
of the ever-ingenious American Spirit and reveling in Rickman’s
involving screen-presence.
While the
segments at Chateau Montelena are never quite as boisterous as
those featuring the often-dumbfounded Spurrier, they too offer
their fair share of sympathetic characters and compelling
subplots. Anchoring the action, Bill Pullman captures both the
pains and pleasures of Jim’s entrepreneurship, working in
harmony with the movie’s greater sense of narrative payoff. As
Bo, Chris Pine takes a subdued hippy-dippy approach, although he
captures substantial emotional-complexity in the process. Bo is
very much the center of interaction at Montelena: he sees the
need to live up to his dad’s lofty expectations, finds himself
falling for Sam, gets into a scuffle with longtime friend
Gustavo when he finds out Gustavo likes Sam too, and ends up
representing Napa at Spurrier’s contest. Additionally,
Montelena’s two men perfectly represent the oft-discussed
generational-gap between the young and old of the 1960s and ‘70s
through their interaction. This theme is never explicitly spoken
to, but it represents one of the many nice touches found in
Bottle Shock.
Worthwhile
adult entertainments are a dime a dozen in today’s movie
marketplace. Thankfully, between Bottle Shock and the
also-excellent Vicky Christina Barcelona, older viewers
seeking fulfilling outings at the local cinema won’t have to
look too hard to find them. (Both pictures are showing at a
solid amount of theatres.) Bottle Shock may ultimately
not resemble anything close to a masterpiece, but it’s a
well-acted and involving entry into the “inspired by a true
story” arsenal. Even if you aren’t remotely interested in wine
itself (I’m not), the film makes for an enjoyable sit.
-Danny Baldwin, Bucket Reviews
Review Published on: 8.15.2008
Screened on: 8.11.2008 at the
Landmark Hillcrest in San Diego, CA.
