Win Win Reviews

Thomas McCarthy, another actor turned director, seems to belong to the kind of directors who makes some movies which are very well reviewed but which don’t get much an audience, at least, that’s how I see it. This time, he made another indie drama starring the always dependable Paul Giamatti and even though it was pretty good, it was still not quite remarkable which is pretty much the same feeling I got from ‘The Visitor’. However, there is one thing I really enjoy in McCarthy’s work and it is the way he manages to create some really compelling characters. In this case, the main character is not a really a bad person, he is just a guy who happens to be a in a tight spot, gets an opportunity and makes a decision. Obviously, what he does is morally questionable but that’s how human beings work, we see an opportunity, we seize it and afterwards we convince us somehow that it was not so bad after all. To make things more interesting, they threw in a lost teenager and that was once again a very interesting character, maybe too nice to be true but still. Somehow, they decided to mix this family drama with a rather generic sport formula and while it was fairly entertaining, it was still really pedestrian and predictable. It didn’t help either that the sport in question was wrestling which must be one of the dullest sports I have ever seen. Still, in spite of its flaws, it remains a decent drama and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Actor-turned-director Tom McCarthy has put together a fine third feature in Win Win. All of his films tend to have compact stories that are small in scope but feature a very focused lens on the lives of their characters.

One might say that Win Win is perhaps his most conventional dramedy, as it features a normal suburban family with normal suburban problems. Paul Giamatti is "Mike Flaherty" an attorney with a small practice who's also a high school wrestling coach. He's not perfect, but he's doing the best he can. He and his wife "Jackie" (the always wonderful Amy Ryan) are busy raising two kids and leading their quiet life. But when Mike gives into temptation to become the guardian of one his elderly clients (for the $1,500 a month commission) things get to be a little more complicated. The client's grandson, a troubled 16-year-old kid named "Kyle" (Alex Shaffer) comes to stay with his grandfather while his mother goes through her drug treatment. Since his grandfather is living in a retirement home, Kyle ends up staying with Mike and Jackie, who feel compelled to help the kid out.

The film is funny and sweet and paints a really true-to-life portrait of its characters. No one is purely good or purely bad, they're all just human. They make mistakes, whether large or small, and they try to make up for them. In that way, the film will strike a nice honest chord with most of its audience.

Paul Giamatti is great in this, giving a much lower key performance than some of his previous works like American Splendor, Sideways, and even "John Adams." He falls into the suburban dad character very well and wears the character's skin rather nicely. Amy Ryan is always a joy to see on-screen, but I was a bit disappointed that her character was a little one-dimensional, depicting her primarily as a stay at home housewife and mother. Bobby Cannavale and Jeffrey Tambor are fun to watch as well, but serve generally to provide comedic relief (which they do in abundance) and their characters aren't nearly as well painted as Mike or Kyle.

Alex Shaffer, in his very first role, holds his own among some heavyweight actors. I thought some of the emotional scenes were a bit rough for him, but if he decides to continue his acting, more experience will only help to mature his instincts and abilities. Now, outside those heavily emotional scenes, Shaffer is great. His sort of deadpan, monotone delivery works very well for the character.

Kudos go out to Thomas McCarthy's directorial style and talent. He's put together three solid films, all of them equally enjoyable and smart. With Win Win, he's proved he can move past the "loner" archetype of his previous films and move into something more family oriented and encompassing of more characters (although when I think about it The Station Agent had that type of familial quality to it in the friends that Finbar meets).

Three years ago, writer/director Thomas McCarthy gave us an astoundingly terrific drama in THE VISITOR. That film's infinite virtues ranged from the spot-on greatness of Richard Jenkins' lead performance to the film's relentless commitment to realism and to its undoubtedly sharp treatment of the issue of illegal immigration. McCarthy is taking it a little easier with WIN WIN, which is more of a "kitchen sink" drama that doesn't veer too much from indie film conventions, yet manages to have enough of an edge of its own to work.

Mike (Paul Giamatti) lives with his wife Jackie (Amy Ryan) and their two daughters. He works both as a high school wrestling coach and as a lawyer, but things aren't going so well for him. The kids in his wrestling team leave a lot to be desired, and as for his day job, he hasn't had many cases come in, so things are getting tough for him financially. He calls a friend of his who is also a lawyer to see if he can send any cases his way, but no luck. Mike is representing the clearly senile Leo (Burt Young), who has been declared legally incapacitated and needs someone to be his guardian. Turns out that, because Leo has a lot of money, whoever becomes his guardian will get a very nice monetary compensation. Mike gets along well with Leo, and so, he decides to become Leo's guardian; he figures, "hey, it's better than the state taking him, and it'll help me money-wise as well." The problem is, though, that Mike lies to the court, claiming he won't move the old man to a nursing home, but he does it. In other words, he tells the judge that he'll take care of Leo, but he simply just delegates the task to the nursing home, whilst still profiting from being his guardian. But hey, at least he's being more morally virtuous than Leo's good-for-nothing, drug-addicted daughter who isn't even present, right? WIN WIN is interested in dealing with the complexities of that particular question. Things get more complicated upon the arrival of Leo's grandson Kyle (Alex Shaffer), who is, indeed, the son of Leo's drug-addicted daughter. Kyle is completely aimless and has nowhere to stay, so Mike and Jackie decide to take him in. Maybe now Mike can morally feel even better about himself, since he's now also taking care of this kid. Or can he? Again, those are the questions WIN WIN chooses to explore.

The reason why I said that WIN WIN hardly veers from indie conventions is partly due to the fact that those of us who watch independent movies on a regular basis already have a good sense of the character arcs that are normally depicted in those films. Inevitably, there's usually an increased amount of quirkiness than what we would see in multiplex fare, but after watching many of them, it's easy for predictability to settle in when an indie film doesn't stray too far from what we expect of it. Every crisis, revelation and moment of redemption in WIN WIN happens exactly at the moment at which you see it coming. The film's ending is particularly wrapped up in an all-too-neat and perfect fashion. I understand the importance of catharsis, but for variety's sake, I feel that movies that have a lot of difficult, dramatic things happen in them should at least leave us with some bitter aftertaste once they're done. In fact, a great example of this is the emotionally devastating ending of THE VISITOR. A more specific criticism that can be made of WIN WIN in the conventionality department has to do with the scenes in which wrestling matches take place: there isn't a single moment in this film in which you'll incorrectly predict whether someone will win or lose a wrestling match. You'll be right every time - I guarantee it.

But despite the fact that WIN WIN won't surprise you very much, there's no denying the richness of the moral complexities at work here. Kyle turns out to be an amazing wrestler, and is quickly put on Mike's team, of course, and one of the interesting aspects that emerges here is that there's a sense that Mike, a middle-aged guy, feels inferior to Kyle, a teenager, because it feels like Kyle is so much more of an accomplished and successful overall person. There's one particularly good scene in which Mike asks Kyle, "What's it like to be as good as you?" He asks it in a light-hearted tone, but we can obviously tell what the subtext is here. The film recognizes something that a lot of other films (and people too) don't want to accept: that it's possible for someone young to be a lot wiser than someone older because of the experiences that he/she has. Wisdom and experience aren't measured by the number of years we've lived, but by what we've done with them. But of course, I'd never dare tell this to an older person, because they'll simply give me a lecture on how I'm young and stupid. :) The fact that WIN WIN isn't afraid to consider this possibility is highly commendable.

Of course, like I said, the meatiest aspect of the plot has to do with Mike's morally dubious approach to what he's doing with Leo and Kyle. This becomes more palpable when, as you surely expected, Leo's trouble-making daughter Cindy (Melanie Lynskey) shows up in the film's second half, ostensibly looking to take care of both her father and her son. Was it so bad that Mike chose to put Leo in a nursing home and decided to take the money for himself? After all, Leo was probably in better hands there than in the state's hands, or God forbid, in Cindy's hands. Did Mike make up for what he did to Leo by taking Kyle into his house and giving him shelter and food and a loving family? I'm presenting these aspects of the plot as questions, which may seem awkward for a review, but I'm doing it because I think it's the most effective way of preparing you for the thematically interesting film you're in store for if you go see WIN WIN. It's easily the type of movie that may lead you to a debate with others who have also seen it.

While WIN WIN's structure is too faithful to the indie film formula, and while it differs from THE VISITOR in that it doesn't touch on any hot-button sociopolitical issues nor does it have any stand-out performances, the picture's dramatic complexity is hard to ignore. With an upcoming summer blockbuster season that'll clearly relish loud noises and superhero costumes over brains and emotions, it's important to know that alternatives like WIN WIN will still come around occasionally. I can't call the film an absolute winner, but at the very least, it's a solid bet.