In New Providence, New Jersey, Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) is a lawyer who moonlights after dark as a wrestling coach struggling to keep his practice in the black, and is hiding that problem from his wife Jackie (Amy Ryan) and their two daughters. When his dementia-afflicted elderly client Leo Poplar (Burt Young) proves to have no nearby relatives, Mike persuades a judge to appoint him as Leo's guardian just for the cash. He has no true intention of looking after Leo and clandestinely moves him into a nursing home while the money keeps rolling in, but not without Leo's teenage grandson Kyle (Alex Shaffer) following suit. He's a sullen, smoking punk whom Mike and Jackie reluctantly take in and then they learn about his troubled background: his mother Cindy (Melanie Lynskey), Leo's daughter, is in rehab after living with her boyfriend and Kyle doesn't want to return there. But then it's revealed Kyle has also been a champion wrestler, and so Mike manages to recruit him onto his team. Everything is then turned upside down when Cindy resurfaces to claim custody of Leo and Kyle.
Before writer-director Tom McCarthy won two Oscars for dramatising the coverage of sexual abuse in a Catholic archdiocese with Spotlight, he made this beautifully charming, layered and and slyly subversive 2011 fusion of sport and family dramedies. Win Win is never artistically daring or distinctive, but it never tries or even needs to be; it's unashamedly a character study, with characters who pleasantly all have to work for our affection and could have otherwise felt rehashed. McCarthy's cast all shine thanks to his lucid and amusing screenplay and patient direction: Giamatti again helps us engage with a quite stuffy loser, Lynskey makes the rather broken Cindy a strong woman, Young shows a subtly comic edge and Shaffer (a real-life former wrestler who's since become a full-time actor) brings adequate angst and nicely-hidden vulnerability to Kyle. Overall, Win Win fully earns its title.
Before writer-director Tom McCarthy won two Oscars for dramatising the coverage of sexual abuse in a Catholic archdiocese with Spotlight, he made this beautifully charming, layered and and slyly subversive 2011 fusion of sport and family dramedies. Win Win is never artistically daring or distinctive, but it never tries or even needs to be; it's unashamedly a character study, with characters who pleasantly all have to work for our affection and could have otherwise felt rehashed. McCarthy's cast all shine thanks to his lucid and amusing screenplay and patient direction: Giamatti again helps us engage with a quite stuffy loser, Lynskey makes the rather broken Cindy a strong woman, Young shows a subtly comic edge and Shaffer (a real-life former wrestler who's since become a full-time actor) brings adequate angst and nicely-hidden vulnerability to Kyle. Overall, Win Win fully earns its title.
No comments:
Post a Comment