The wrestle of daily life is at the core of WIN WIN the latest film from director Tom McCarthy whose previous films The Station Agent and The Visitor made my top ten in their respective years. It’s a fair bet he’ll make it a hat trick with WIN WIN.
Paul Giamatti plays a struggling solicitor trying to provide for his wife and two young daughters. In the economic downturn his business is suffering and when he sees an ethically questionable opportunity to allay his financial woes he grapples with the ethics and pins them in a sleeper hold. Giamatti’s Mike is someone you can’t help like. Committed family man, loyal business partner, good boss, practicing Catholic, community spirited. He’s a volunteer wrestling coach at the local high school.
His “little white lie” over the guardianship of a client, Leo, a dementia sufferer whose only known kin, a drug addicted daughter, is not contactable, seems a win win situation. When Leo’s grandson Kyle comes to town, what looks like a fly in the ointment becomes a gift horse without a mouth as the kid is an accomplished wrestler and revivifies Mike’s rag tag team.
Kyle, a troubled youth, finds succour in the bosom of Mike’s family and relevance in the wrestling team.
All of Mike and Kyle’s travails seem to be pinned to the mat when Kyle’s opportunistic mother arrives and puts the relationship into a head-lock.
WIN WIN is a beautifully written piece by McCarthy and realised by a superlative cast. Giamatti gives another grounded performance as the attorney half-nelsoned by a mistake and Amy Ryan as his feisty Jersey wife who can accept mistakes, but not secrets.
As the angst filled adolescent, Kyle, real-life wrestling champion Alex Shaffer is a revelation, a novice actor blessed with a natural charm and charisma, whose sense of betrayal is palpable.
As his mother, Melanie Lynskie brings a nicely nuanced edginess of the addict without falling into stereotype and as the addled grandfather Burt Young shows his still got the acting chops after 40 years playing memorable characters, most famously Paulie in the Rocky franchise.
Funny, poignant, pertinent, a life affirming film about adjusting your moral compass so that your course is true.
Richard Cotter
17th August, 2011