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Movie Review: Win Win

Gregory Fichter

A high-school wrestling comedy with perennial indie schlub Paul Giamatti coaching sounds like it could be an unbearable retread of recent bombs like Mr. Woodcock or Drillbit Taylor, but with a surefire ensemble cast and a tricky balance of humor and pathos more in line with Little Miss Sunshine, Win Win turns out to be one of the early sleeper surprises of 2011.

Giamatti’s Mike Flaherty is a Counselor-at-Law specializing is assisting elderly clients by day and moonlighting as coach of the New Providence Pioneers wrestling team. Barely keeping his practice afloat, Mike takes on the guardianship of an old man suffering dementia plus the $1,500 a month he retains after placing old Mr. Poplar (Burt Young) in a home. If this doesn’t sound like the most rollicking set-up for a comedy, be forewarned that though there are many laughs in the picture, this is human comedy at a gentle pace, concerned with real issues that eventually lead to a third act climax of family drama. Director/writer Thomas McCarthy has excelled at this formula twice before with his sardonic film festival hit The Station Agent (2003) and the Oscar-nominated The Visitor (2007).

It is deeply refreshing to meet a family in a movie that does not play on tired sitcom tropes or rehearsed indie cleverness – even when the laughs come from a child swearing or the exercise perils of an out-of-shape man, the movie admirably handles the material without winking or hysteria. The comedy comes from a recognizable place of everyday worries and compromises – an outstanding cast led by Giamatti (playing haggard but kindly to perfection) and Amy Ryan (as Mike’s tough but not shrewish wife Jackie) goes a long way in grounding the material in reality. One hilarious subplot concerns Mike’s successful best friend (Bobby Cannavale) going through a mid-life crisis which involves stalking his ex and her new lover. In this superfluous behavioral comedy side note, the movie establishes a tricky balance between the hurt behind such actions and the inherent absurdity in them and maintains this sort of insightfulness throughout.

One day, Mr. Poplar’s miscreant, Eminem-lookalike grandson Kyle (Alex Shaffer) shows up to visit his grandpa, having heard that the man has been placed under care and also to escape a drug-addicted mother (Melanie Lynskey) back in Ohio. Turns out young Kyle was a formidable state wrestling champion a few years back and had to abandon his one passion due to his mother’s negligence. Mike has struck upon a goldmine of talent to give his pathetic high school team a fighting chance. You might think the wrestling scenes are where the movie would finally give in to gay panic jokes and slapstick, but it even plays these scenes as inherently funny, but not over-the-top (except for a cute scene of a rookie kid running circles around the mat to avoid confrontation). Kyle is indeed a Zen master on the wrestling mat and proves an inspirational figure to his coaches and adoptive family. The new arrangement is indeed a win/win until Kyle’s opportunistic mom arrives to get her hands on her father’s money and threatens to take Kyle back with her.

In his first acting role, Shaffer brings his actual honed wrestling skills to the table and also exhibits a true talent for naturalistic performing; only going too big in one emotional scene where he physically threatens his mother. It is in the little bonding scenes with surrogate mom Jackie (showing off her Jon Bon Jovi tattoo or grocery shopping) and her daughter where Shaffer most impresses with his low-key comic timing.

Win Win benefits greatly from the tastefulness of its actor-turned-director McCarthy in the problematic but not derailing final act in which Kyle’s scheming mother (feeling too much like a plot device) brings the story to the brink of its modest confines when she threatens to end the movie with a courtroom battle. In keeping his ambitions and his performers grounded, McCarthy wisely finds a way to avoid this flat cliché, presents a more satisfying resolution, and earns his happy ending.

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Gregory Fichter

Greg toiled for years in the hallowed bowels of the legendary Thomas Video and has studied cinema as part of the Concentration for Film Studies and Aesthetics at Oakland University. He has hosted the cult movie night "Celluloid Sundays" at The Belmont in Hamtramck, MI. and enjoys everything from High Trash to Low Art.

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