Win Win

Synopsis: Struggling lawyer and devoted family man Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) is also a volunteer coach for the local high school wrestling team. To increase his income, he engages in slightly underhand dealings, involving Leo (Burt Young), who is suffering early dementia. Hence he meets Leo’s grandson, Kyle (Alex Shaffer), a talented and aspiring teenage wrestler, who turns up, hoping to live with Leo. Just when life seems to be turning a corner for all, Kyle’s mother, Cindy (Melanie Lynskey) turns up and threatens to turn everything upside down.

I loved McCarthy’s two previous films, The Station Agent (2003) and The Visitor (2007) hence I came to his latest with high hopes. But whilst I was entertained, especially and as always, by Paul Giamatti, I ended up feeling I had seen something that resembled an episode of a typical US TV series (McCarthy starred his career as an actor in just those kinds of series). Perhaps because wrestling is at the centre of the story, and I’m no big rap for that activity, I found it less than inspiring. And in typical Yankee fashion, we have to have all those shots of eager parents sitting round cheering their kids on, coaches making all the usual comments coaches make, thus giving me that “seen it all before” feeling.

McCarthy likes to explore unlikely relationships between people, and this film is no exception, though it is done not nearly as deftly as in the previous two films. Mike shares offices, and wrestling coaching, with a dour accountant, Stephen (Jeffrey Tambor), while his best friend, Terry (Bobby Cannavale) has an amiable quirkiness. Mike’s wife Jackie (Amy Ryan) is supportive, and unexpectedly embraces Kyle, who is so unlike the two cutie-pie girls she raises. Kyle affects a surly manner (which we know will melt in due course), but he is the catalyst for firing up enthusiasm in the lives of Mike, Terry and Stephen and also brings out the protective, motherly traits in Jackie.

It is the character of  Kyle’s opportunistic mum that is most at odds with this very middle-class family and she most pointedly illustrates the moral dilemmas that are also at the heart of this film. Mike’s lack of integrity in duping old Leo is morally reprehensible, yet we tend to sympathise with his financial battles and sort of forgive him, whereas the similarly money-grubbing Cindy comes across as more morally bereft because of her dubious past and because her son seems to hate her.

Acting-wise, Giamatti convinces as the likeable Mike The other cast members are adequate to their tasks and it is certainly to the credit of young Schaffer, cast for his wrestling skills rather than acting, that he brings a sympathetic side to Kyle, a lad who might otherwise have been a fairly closed and unlikeable character.

There are plenty of sweet and humorous one-liners, such as when Mike’s little daughter asks “Where’s Daddy”, and told he is out running she responds “From what?” Maybe suburban life these days is a lot about what we are running from, but Win Win tries hard to show us a path that can work for all if we are all a little more caring about those who don’t fit into our scheme of things. And, of course, if we own up to our mistakes!

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