Win Win Poster

Win Win (2011)

Comedy | Sport 
Rayting:   7.2/10 52.7K votes
Country: USA
Language: English
Release date: 15 April 2011

A struggling lawyer and volunteer wrestling coach's chicanery comes back to haunt him when the teenage grandson of the client he has double crossed comes into his life.

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User Reviews

mandy-1 17 April 2011

Like enduring friendships, "Win Win" grows and deepens as it unfolds. The characters become more dear, the laughs get louder and the plot thickens.

Writer, director Thomas McCarthy (who also wrote and directed one of my all time favorite movies, "The Station Agent") has created a group of characters as strange and wonderful as real people, but with better lines. Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan are perfect. New-comer Alex Shaffer as a troubled teen wrestler creates a whole new kind of cool. Bobby Cannavale (also from "The Station Agent) sparkles in every scene.

If you want to see writing, directing and acting at it's best go see "Win Win." You'll win too.

jdesando 7 April 2011

Fmovies: I enjoy Royal Tenenbaums, Juno, and Little Miss Sunshine because they're about eccentric, witty people whose foibles are made less than tragic, their dialogue hypnotizes, and their personas seduce. Then comes Win Win, not as ingenious or innovative as those films but a winner in its own right because it embellishes little while it stays real and lovingly humane.

A little like my family and other interesting neighbors, Win Win has love to spare. Mike (Paul Giamatti) has a failing law practice, moonlights as a high school wrestling coach, and now becomes custodian of elderly Leo Poplar (Burt Young) because Mike needs the $1500 a month. Soon complication arrives with bleached blond Kyle (Alex Schaffer), Leo's grandson, who wants to live with Leo.

Mike is thus faced with more complications than he bargained for in the caretaker role, yet a bit of light shines through as he deals with the taciturn Kyle, who happens to be an excellent wrestler. Mike's relationship with his wife, Jackie (Amy Ryan), is rich with respect between both and patience on her part as she helps Mike through his ethical challenge and his guidance of Kyle.

Nothing comes easy in this dramedy, as it doesn't for most of us, but the beauty of this film is that it slowly works out all the kinks of life in a slowly distributed narrative with triumphs and setbacks that seem to come naturally. Because the central characters are loving and largely benign, the film has an easy, unforced quality.

Terry (Bobby Cannavale) is especially likable as Mike's old wrestling buddy, recently split from his wife, and full of energy to channel as assistant coach helping with their new wrestling star. Cannavale brings an easy charm to the film; he's an enjoyable foil for the schlubby, depressive Giammatti.

Although a few swear words, mostly "f bombs," are dotted in the dialogue, it is essentially a family where the characters live to love.

Jazzist-H-Crisp 8 June 2011

The story-line of Win Win brings difficult and realistic moral issues before us, which engage our interest and challenge our sympathies. But the film is not a ponderous work of moral theory, fortunately. Instead, it has many humorous moments which keep the tone quite light, even as the film raises some darker problems.

The first dilemma concerns the subterfuge that lawyer Mike Flaherty (Paul Giametti) employs to win the maintenance award for looking after his elderly client Leo who suffers from Alzheimers disease. The dilemma is not so much his (he needs the money too badly and he has a family to provide for), as ours - should we sympathise or not? Mike is a lawyer, yet he deceives the court and thus breaks the law. Yet, at the same time, Leo does not really lose out because the home that Mike puts him in is very comfortable. In a way, Mike's deceit is a win-win solution that solves Mike's financial problems and also provides proper care for Leo. But surely deceit cannot be condoned? Or can it? While we are still dealing with that issue, an entirely different one looms up and takes over the story. Leo's grand-son arrives, looking for his grand-father, Leo, who is now in the care home. Not only does this plot development add a lot of tension (because Mike's deceit is in danger of being exposed), it also adds further complications on the moral front. The first is, should Mike tell Kyle the truth, or is it better to try and help Kyle personally while leaving him in the dark? Should we really expect Mike to confess, when the result will be disastrous for so many people and achieve very little, apart from establishing the truth about Leo's transfer to the care home? Once again, we are just beginning to settle one problem when another arrives to add further complications, this time in the shape of Kyle's mother, Leo's daughter, who has never shown any interest in her father, but now shows a mercenary interest in his state of dependency.

I really enjoyed this film. There is a lightness in the telling of the story, which makes the whole experience a pleasure, but it is a story with some difficult issues to set before us, issues such as the care of the elderly and the rights of birth-parents over foster-parents, which give us food for thought. Above all, however, the film is very well acted and the characters are brought to life very effectively, persuading us of the reality of the issues which it raises, but also coaxing us to temper our judgment of our fellow human beings. The film reminds us that life is rarely as clear-cut as our stern guilty-or-innocent judgments would require.

napierslogs 24 April 2011

Win Win fmovies. As in Thomas McCarthy's first film, "The Station Agent", there is an air of loneliness to the characters in "Win Win" but also with an ability to be kind and with a whole lot of humour permeating throughout. Mike (Paul Giamatti) is approaching a mid-life crisis; the monotony of daily life and money troubles colliding. But this is a well written film and it doesn't look or feel like a mid-life crisis. Just as we get to know the characters exceedingly well (despite the short air time for some - Bobby Cannavale's Terry), a plot is introduced. Mike starts acting like a sleazy lawyer just to make some easy money, even though he's anything but a sleazy lawyer. Because he's a good guy, realities quickly catch up, and he starts taking responsibility for a troubled kid. Mostly trying to assuage his guilt of wrong-doing, but this kid happens to be a wrestling phenom and Mike is a struggling high school wrestling coach. This film could easily turn into an underdog sports story, but as I said before, this is a well written film and it doesn't look or feel like an underdog sports story. I found "Win Win" to be a great mix of character study, a mid-life crisis, and an underdog sports story all rolled into something that isn't any of the above. It's a light, funny, enjoyable slice of life that could provide a few lessons on morality but stops itself before it becomes condescending.

JimmyCollins 15 August 2011

Paul Giamatti is awesome, simple as that. Such a talented actor, I have yet to see him in a film that I haven't enjoyed. So of course Win Win is the next on the list on his impressive resume, the story was surprisingly quite complex but not difficult to keep track of which is the work of a great director.

The character of Jack is very reminiscent of Giamatti's character from Storytelling, a guy somewhat down on his luck who just can't seem to get ahead or on top of things, of course these films are very different but the similarities are definitely there.

Amy Ryan impressed me a lot, I've never seen her in anything before but after seeing this I look forward to catching other films with her, she has a great presence in screen and her and Giamatti work excellently together... Also worth mentioning is the always fantastic Jeffrey Tambor, equally as cool as Giamatti.

The only thing I thought didn't work was Melanie Lynskey, that woman has one of the sweetest faces and personalities, and seeing her playing a gold digging, backstabbing selfish mother just didn't work. I still love her though.

A nice film that is not groundbreaking, but especially entertaining and pleasant to watch.

michael-mccann-858-974258 11 March 2011

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). Either way, McCarthy is batting 1.000 in my book and has yet to have a misstep.

When the film releases on March 18th, I'd highly recommend people go and check it out. It's a very sweet and very funny film that deserves the large audience it hopefully will get.

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