As good as Hayden is, Paul Giamatti is better, by virtue, probably, of being Paul Giamatti and playing a character that once again feels like retreading territory he's already covered in real life. Like Harvey Pekar in American Splendor, Miles is a child of pain and failure. Miles is a man of aspiration and brilliance. He's also, unfortunately, an anachronism. An alcoholic of the wine-tasting variety, he appreciates with monklike fervor something that most of modernity treats as an afterthought. White with fish and pork, Red with beef--or something like that. For Miles, it goes much deeper, wine is a reason to live. He also teaches 8th grade and has written a novel that is at least 750 manuscript pages. A novel Miles fears is a great book that won't find a home. From the beginning we know he's probably right.

I say the book is at least 750 pages because, at one point, as he quizzes Jack about his newest draft, Miles asks about the new ending. It's much, much better, Jack says. Miles tells him that nothing after page 750 has changed at all. Jack reasons that it must have just seemed different because everything leading up to it is so different. "Yeah, I'm sure it's that," Miles says with an acidity that belies his sullen exterior.

A lot of the humor in this movie, and there's a shitton, is based around these kinds of exchanges. An equal amount is based on personal humiliation. A third and no less significant source is how these two things are held beautifully in suspension by slapstick action. Jack gives Miles some bad news. It's some really horrible, absolutely awful news. Personally humiliating news. Miles shrinks away, then attacks Jack for keeping it from him. Jack on the defensive, explains his wrong-headed but good-hearted reasoning. That's the exchange. What makes the scene transcend what we've seen a million times in a million buddy movies is Miles' final move. There's a High Noon moment. Miles has a crazy look in his eye and Jack hunkers down like a linebacker. Miles dives into the back of his 70's Saab convertible, grabs a bottle of Pinot Noir and dashes headlong down a really steep slope, thumbing the mouth of the bottle between deep swigs, while Jack, the more conventionally brutish and manly of the two, gingerly and carefully runs after. It serves to lighten up a very confrontational scene, but also underscore that Miles, so close to rock-bottom, really has nothing left to lose.