Alan Rickman practices a stealth approach to comedy -- laughs for him are the product of a dry, reserved and withholding theatrical temperament. All veddy, veddy English, of course (appropriate for an actor who spent time in Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company). But Rickman also delights in flouting expectations.
He's funny. But he's funny in a way that audiences can connect with. Anyone who has enjoyed him as Severus Snape in the "Harry Potter" movies, the continually flabbergasted Sheriff of Nottingham in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" (1991) or the psychopathic and exasperated villain Hans Gruber in "Die Hard" (1988) can attest to this.
Rickman calls this quality the "once-upon-a-time factor." Relaxing with a cup of tea at the Four Seasons Beverly Hills, he explains that it occurs "when it feels as if a movie is about the audience and people are truly engaged with the story."
Rickman's talent for humor, storytelling and, above all, generosity is on abundant display in "Bottle Shock," which opened last week in Los Angeles. It's the second film that he's done with writer-director Randall Miller and co-writer Jody Savin (the first was the yet-to-be-released "Nobel Son").
"This is the Randy and Jody part of my life," Rickman says with his trademark weary archness, a quality that he deftly alternates with effusive praise for his artistic collaborators. "It's a unique thing that Randy and Jody have -- a totally unique and independent energy."
If 2004's "Sideways" gave us the melancholy-romantic-middle-age-loser take on the wine world, then "Bottle Shock" gives us the mock-heroic-triumph-of-the-underdog version. Set in 1976 (with the wardrobe and hairstyles to prove it), the film dramatizes the well-worn story of the so-called Judgment of Paris and the now-legendary wine-tasting competition staged in the City of Light, in which a batch of upstart California bottlings were pitted against the best France had to offer -- and won. The understandably shocking results made it into Time magazine, and the California wine boom was officially off and slurping.
