Win Win, starring Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan

Tom McCarthy has spent his first few directorial gigs circling around some truly lonely characters. His debut, The Station Agent, cast Peter Dinklage as a train enthusiast looking to get away from everybody. The Visitor featured Richard Jenkins as a guy past his prime, with no family or anything to show for all his years. Win Win is a slight departure, in that the main character of troubled lawyer Mike Flaherty(Paul Giamatti) is surrounded by people who love him. Mike's problem is that he chooses to take on the the many difficulties the world throws at him alone, and in so doing he commits an uncharacteristic mistake that gets real complicated real fast.

Win Win is probably McCarthy's most overtly comical film yet, but even to define it as a comedy is to undersell the many emotions swirling around. Mike is a good guy and a pillar of the community, but one with a lot on his plate. His legal practice is a flop, hemorrhaging money. It doesn't help that his office is literally falling apart at the seams. The high school wrestling team he coaches is a disaster, in the midst of a losing steak a mile long. Everything's going down the drain, but all Mike wants to do is keep his family happy and free from worry. In a desperate bid to stay afloat, Mike takes on the guardianship of Leo Poplar, a client suffering from Alzheimer's. Not out of the goodness of his heart, but for the monthly fee he can extract from it. Mike puts the man in an old folk's home and hopes the whole situation blows over with nobody the wiser. There's just one problem: Leo's grandson, Kyle(newcomer Alex Shaffer), shows up from Ohio for a visit.
 

Here's where things start to get dicey. Kyle is basically alone. His mom, Cindy(Melanie Lynskey) is a drug addict struggling through rehab. Jackie(Amy Ryan), Mike's spark plug of a wife, can't let the troubled teen just wander around alone. They take him into their home, and Kyle's obvious outward confidence immediately draws everybody in. Jackie treats him like a son. Kyle gets in good with their kids like an older brother. And Mike...well, Mike realizes Kyle's natural gift for wrestling and uses that talent for all it's worth. Without ever realizing it, Mike has turned from a guy who relished giving back to the community to being someone who casually uses others for his own gain. It doesn't help having his best friend, Terry(Bobby Cannavale), egging the scheme on at every turn.

It might sound like Mike has taken a dark  turn, but there are complexities to his personality that make him hard to define. That's one of the true strengths of every one of McCarthy's scripts is his ability to make the people in his films real. They grow and breathe and rarely end the film the way they started. It's a perfect role for Giamatti, so used to playing the everyman schlub, but here he's a guy who truly has it all but probably needs someone to remind him of that. Amy Ryan is also a natural as the tough, nurturing Jackie. The real surprise is the quietly charismatic debut by Alex Shaffer. An actual high school wrestling champ, Shaffer's quiet, on point delivery is perfect for the emotionally subdued character he's playing. Bobby Cannavale always thrives when working with McCarthy. On the surface, Cannavale's characters always appear to be just comic relief, but there's much more going on beneath the surface. Terry is the catalyst for a lot of the actions(both good and not so good) Mike ultimately takes.

One of the most endearing elements of all of McCarthy's stories is the idea of family, and characters being forced to find it wherever they can. It's a theme you see pop up in any number of sports dramas, but rarely is it used so effectively. I love the little human quirks every character displays, those little touches that make Win Win feel like more than just another indie film, but like a slice of real life. My only complaint is a minor one, in that I think there are times when the script struggles between trying to be funny or serious. There are some heavy issues thrown at us towards the end of the film as the situation unravels, some of which get addressed better than others.

Win Win works on any number of levels. As a comedy, or a quirky indie film, even as an uplifting sports drama I think audiences will be very pleased. How ever one wishes to define it, Win Win is an emotional, frequently hilarious story which everyone can find some relation to. For Tom McCarthy it's just another day at the office.