Movie Review of Win Win - A winning drama and a winning comedy.
3 ½ out of 5
You may just be “blind sided” by Win Win.
Comparisons to The Blind Side have to be made, but whereas that was a big budget movie that hyped Sandra Bullock’s performance and that manipulated us into liking it despite ourselves, Win Win is a humbler project that’s just as good.
The less glamorous Paul Giamatti plays Mike Flaherty, an attorney whose practice is far from thriving. He has to call other attorneys hoping to pick up their overflow, and he has to hold off fixing the broken boiler in his office basement. Mike moonlights as a high school wrestling coach with a team that’s never won a meet. But he finds a way to make a little extra money: he becomes the legal custodian of one of his elderly clients so that he can collect $1500 a month in fees. He stashes him in a senior living center figuring he won’t have any real work to do and can collect the money.
Things get complicated when his ward’s grandson Kyle (Alex Shaffer) shows up looking for a place to live. Mike and his wife Jackie (The Office’s Amy Ryan) end up taking him in. He’s a bit of a punk with some mystery to him – but as luck would have it, the kid’s a wrestler.
So it’s kind of like The Blind Side, except the leads have more questionable motives. And Giamatti and Ryan aren’t as good looking as Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw. And it probably has less mass appeal because it’s about a high school wrestler not a real-life NFL player.
In other words, it’s much more relatable. The Tuohy family who took in Michael Oher did a good thing, but what was at stake? Their social standing? They were rich and could have afforded to take in a couple more kids if they’d wanted to. Win Win’s Flahertys are already living hand-to-mouth, and suddenly they’ve got another mouth to feed. Watching The Blind Side, a typical movie-goer will think: “that’s good that she did that.” Watching Win Win, a typical movie-goer will think: “Man, I don’t know if I could do it.”
That’s because Giamatti’s Mike Flaherty is an everyman. Is he doing wrong by setting himself up as the old man’s guardian? Yes. But this is not some get-rich scheme. We’re talking about $1500 a month: enough that he can collect it, call Jackie and say “Go ahead and mail the health insurance.” Whether or not we’d do it, it’s a real temptation.
It is not an overly depressing movie – in fact, Win Win is a winning drama and a winning comedy. Mike puts on a brave front for his family, facing life’s obstacles with good humor. We end up laughing along with him – as we do with his friends and fellow coaches played by Jeffrey Tambor and Bobby Cannavale. Cannavale in particular is a scene-stealer as Mike’s divorced buddy living vicariously through Kyle.
Kyle isn’t necessarily the funniest kid because he’s so quiet, but the Flahertys’ reactions to him are pretty funny. His teammates getting used to him are pretty funny too. Win Win is darker than The Blind Side, its characters of more questionable morality and its central theme has much less broad appeal. Yet somehow it has a lighter side than The Blind Side. It’s also a “win” entirely on its own merits.
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Genre/s: Comedy
Release Date/s: March 18, 2011 (Showtimes & Tickets)
Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Production Company: Everest Entertainment, Next Wednesday Productions, Fox Searchlight Pictures
Official Site: Win Win Official Site
CAST and CREW FOR Win Win
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Ryan, Jeffrey Tambor, Melanie Lynskey, Burt Young, Amy Landecker, Margo Martindale, Sharon Wilkins
Directed By: Thomas McCarthy
Written By: Thomas McCarthy, Joe Tiboni
Produced By: Lisa Maria Falcone, Michael London, Mary Jane Skalski