I'm not necessary.

Great movie, was shown recently on FX cable channel. I think its best to see "Sideways" at least twice. Some viewers complain that its boring, that the humor is too obscure. But the acting is fantastic - the four main characters each give great performances. Miles is a middle school english teacher, in love with his wife, who divorced him, who didnt want to have children with him. He lives in a depressing apartment. His only friend is Jack, his roommate from his freshman year in college (only his freshman year, Jack must have ditched him after that). Miles and Jack go on a roadtrip to wine country in California before Jack's wedding. Miles is an expert on wine: he has nothing else in his life. His knowledge of wine makes up for an unhappy childhood, an unhappy adult life. Jack is superficial, a fraud and fake. At the end, Miles is in class, and a student is reading the end of Finnegan's wake (which I confess I have never read - is this passage from Finnegan's Wake? It mentions Boston? perhaps not) in a monotone voice, and the expression on Jack's face is that his life is passing before him.
"I did not cry then or ever about
Finny. I did not cry even when I
stood watching him being lowered
into his family's straight-laced
burial ground outside of Boston. I
could not escape a feeling that this
was my own funeral, and you do not
cry in that case."
Of course Miles has written the Great American Novel, which no publisher will publish. Miles would like to kill himself, only he has to get published first (he jokes). There is a lot of humor in the movie (Charles Bukowsky was a 1950's beat writer known for his "obscene" writing).

Miles: Well, the world doesn't give a shit what I have to say. I'm not necessary. Had. I'm so insignificant I can't even kill myself.
Jack: Miles, what the hell is that supposed to mean?
Miles Raymond: Come on, man. You know. Hemingway, Sexton, Plath, Woolf. You can't kill yourself before you're even published.
Jack: What about the guy who wrote Confederacy of Dunces? He killed himself before he was published. Look how famous he is.
Miles Raymond: Thanks.
Jack: Just don't give up, alright? You're gonna make it.
Miles Raymond: Half my life is over and I have nothing to show for it. Nothing. I'am thumbprint on the window of a skyscraper. I'm a smudge of excrement on a tissue surging out to sea with a million tons of raw sewage.
Jack: See? Right there. Just what you just said. That is beautiful. 'A smudge of excrement... surging out to sea.'
Miles Raymond: Yeah.
Jack: I could never write that.
Miles Raymond: Neither could I, actually. I think it's Bukowsky.

Anyway great film, sad and beautiful.