It's more about ambition and family than wine, but wine is the catalyst as it is for most romances in life.
Uncorked
Grade: B
Director: Prentice Penny
Screenplay: Penny
Cast: Courtney B. Vance (The Photograph), Mamoudou Athie (Underwater)
Rating: NR
Runtime: 1h 44m
By: John DeSando
“Hey, if you want to tell people what to drink with their chitlins, I’m fine.” Louis (Courtney B. Vance)
If the serious contemplation of a fine wine is a sweet, deliberative process, then Netflix’s Uncorked mirrors that measured appreciation in just over an hour and a half. A young son, Elijah (Mamoudou Athie), tells his dad, Louis, that he doesn’t want to take over the family Memphis BBQ business. Although dad is a tough boss and father, Vance gives him a humanity not easily discounted.
What Elijah wants is to become a sommelier, which will take intense study the Court of Master Sommeliers. In his spare time, he works for a wine store and craves the Domaine Long-Depaquit Chablis. While that courageous sommelier undertaking occupies some of the film’s conflict, even more is given to the tense relationship of father and son, as son disappoints father, who wants him to carry on the family business.
In neither the wine nor family case is any new ground covered, except that the family is black, not an important point of view here but an undertone. The slow changes coming over the principals create dramatic tension in our wanting to know if Elijah will pass the exam (the studying and exams are fearsome, not unlike I suppose for the CPA).
Both Vance and Athie are superb actors, who accurately depict two people who love each other but have different aspirations. The actors of the family and Elijah’s girlfriend, Tanya (Sasha Compere), are relaxed and, with one exception, without stereotype. In that regard, they could be of any color and the story arc the same. No surprise that Elijah starts to win Tanya’s heart with his description of chardonnay as “the jay Z of wine.” As they agree Drake is like a Riesling, they’re in love.
Although his color may inhibit his aspirations, he heroically pursues his dream, despite only 230 Master Sommeliers in the world and for oenophiles a white world at that. Although at times the metaphoric language of expert wine appreciation is inscrutable, Elijah’s ambition speaks to any young ambitious person. Don’t look for the spice of Sideways, a much more entertaining journey, but do savor the arc of a family in change.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JohnDeSando62@gmail.com.
