Win Win

As an actor, Thomas McCarthy is one of those faces that keeps cropping up but you can never put a name to. However, as a writer-director, his previous two films (The Station Agent and The Visitor) have been underseen slices of brilliance. He has a gift for crafting compelling stories out of very real but unlikely relationships and human contact.

Win Win is lighter in tone than his previous two films. Paul Giamatti gives us another performance as a put upon everyman as Mike, a lawyer with financial problems, who takes on the guardianship of an old man because he needs the fees. Things start to get complicated when the man's grandson, Kyle, turns up to stay. But what would you know, the kids a star wrestler and Mike coaches the local, not very successful, team. Of course, things don't turn out that smoothly.

In different hands, this could have turned into a standard comedy, with Mike going to ever more desparate lengths to cover up what he's doing. McCarthy doesn't go there, preferring instead to keep some very real, sometimes funny, but sometimes painful relationships at the core. At the heart of the film is a true-feeling relationship between Mike and his wife (Amy Ryan) and their growing bond with Kyle. Given this, the ending is a bit of let down - feeling too neat and not quite real somehow, straying into the kind of Capra-esque feel-good factor which is fine in its place, but feels out of place in this film.

Elsewhere, the acting is superb - Giamatti and Ryan are every bit as good as you'd expect. Bobby Cannavale and Jeffrey Tambor add most of the laughs as Mike's two friends and fellow coaches.

Overall - 7/10 The ending's a slightly off note, but otherwise this is a funny and moving film with the ring of truth to it.