WIN WIN

“WIN WIN” (Paul Giamatti)

I heard this began regaled as a laugh out loud comedy... That line couldn’t be more misleading. This is a dramedy; the humor is mostly subtle. Whenever I laughed at something, it wasn’t loudly. This is a decent film, worth seeing, but if you go in expecting to giggle a lot – that isn’t going to happen... well, unless you’re high.

“Win Win” is the story of a struggling lawyer named Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti)
Mike runs his own practice, he isn’t a high priced attorney for a big firm and so the economy has Mike looking for ways to increase his income. A client named Leo (Burt Young) has Alzheimer’s and no guardian – his lone daughter disowned him and hasn’t been heard from in years – so when Mike discovers his guardian will get $1,500 a month to care for Leo, Mike takes the job. Then he promptly moves Leo out of his house and into an old folks home so he doesn’t have to actually ‘care’ for the old guy. Mike somehow makes this ethical in his mind because ‘Leo can afford it’. Even though it is clearly not what Leo wants.

Even though we come to like Mike for being a decent guy, we keep hoping that he’ll eventually do the right thing for Leo. To me, Mike’s flaw made him human. Clearly if it wasn’t for the tough economic times, this lawyer wouldn’t have made such an unethical move.

Things get awkward for Mike when Leo’s grandson Kyle (played by a pre-Fast Times At Ridgemont High Sean Penn) appears on Leo’s doorstep. Now Mike has to lie to the kid about why Leo is in a place he doesn’t want to be. The Flaherty’s take Kyle into their home – for wife, Jackie (Amy Smart) it’s due to her charitable nature / For Mike, it’s clearly out of guilt.

The subplot involves Mike’s ‘hobby-job’ as a high school wrestling coach. After Mike discovers Kyle is a state champion caliber wrestler, he asks the boy to join his winless wrestling team. Jeffrey Tambor plays Mike’s assistant coach so low-key you hardly remember him being in the cast, while Bobby Cannavale adds a major creepy factor as Mike’s best friend, Terry. Terry comes across as a closet pedophile in the way he enthuses over watching teenage boys grappling in close quarters. When Mike agrees to allow Terry to become his 2nd assistant coach I thought for sure the storyline was going to end with Terry in jail for sexually harassing one of the boys.

Then Kyle’s mom (Melanie Lynskey) comes to town and the proverbial poop hits the fan for Mike. Just like in ‘South Park’ this Kyle’s mom is a b*tch as well. And Kyle freaks out when she appears, but the reason is never fully explained – other than she’s been in rehab most of his life and he hates her for it.

So ‘Win Win’ presents an interesting premise; Nice guy Mike does a bad thing because he thinks no one will ever find out – soothing his conscious by saying ‘Leo’s better off being watched after by professionals’ – and then gets buried in lies to everyone in his life to cover his greedy move and now his marriage and livelihood are crumbling over this one stupid misdeed.

It’s a pleasant film – an interesting film. But it isn’t even close to being a laugh out loud comedy!