I'm going to have to disagree with you. You make a good argument, but I think that Payne is trying to make us sympathize wiith Giamatti. The way the character is portrayed gives a feeling of lonliness and depression that, to me, seemed to spread to the audience.

This was a very straightforward film, which meant that there was nothing deeper than the outer level, which is what everybody saw. Chris has said this also, that there is nothing more you can gain after you see it once. It is flat, and the only way to make it appear differently is to have Giamatti's character recieve sympathy from the audience. But when Payne asks for the sympathy, he is also changing Giamatti's charcter completely from what we saw in the very first 5 minutes of the film.

Like I said, I enjoyed this film, but if it wins best picture I will be very dissapointed with the academy. I have nothing against it but it is definately not as good as all the critics seemed to spew everywhere.