I gotta say that I can forgive Thomas McCarthy for being in movies like 2012 if he keeps making movies like Win Win. Much more than his costar in that movie, John Cusack, he seems to actually take his money and really make his own small, personal movies. Win Win is probably a more conventional movie, so to speak, then The Station Agent and The Visitor, which sounds like a criticism against it but it's not. Paul Giamatti plays a small town lawyer whose small practice is losing money, so he makes a shady business deal around an elderly client to make some extra money. The man's estranged grandson (and eventually his estranged) daughter come back into the picture and, of course, things change. Paul Giamatti's other job happens to be as wrestling coach for the local high school, and the teenage grandson who, out of nowhere, comes to live with is grandfather also happens to be a wrestling prodigy. It definitely deals with Thomas McCarthy's favorite theme of lonely people finding one another, but its also about your actions and how they can come back and bite you. The acting is uniformly good, particularly Giamatti and Amy Ryan as his wife. Although Bobby Cannavale is a bit tonally over the top. It's interesting because Kyle, the grandson, is good here and it's his first and only movie. It seems his only requirement to be in the movie was winning the New Jersey State wrestling title. And the goofy kid he befriends on the team has only been in a handful of things. Its also nice to see Margo Martindale here as another small town lawyer. She, of course, plays Mags Bennett on Justified.
-K
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