Movies tend to deal in big archetypes: The superhero, the dastardly villain, the poor waif. Moviemaking becomes much more difficult in tight focus. No matter how much effort is put into a movie, real life is more complicated and vivid than the screen can capture. Right and wrong is rarely marked with neon signs in reality, but the path we choose affects our entire life. In “Win Win,” a film that subtly and expertly addresses these issues, a man who considers himself basically good is forced to face the depths of his own shortcuts and rationalizations.
Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) toils at his law practice in a small town. He focuses on law for the elderly, mostly wills and power of attorney and such matters. Although he works hard, his income barely supports his wife Jackie (Amy Ryan) and two daughters. Mike moonlights as a high school wrestling coach with his friend Steven (Jeffrey Tambor), partly for the money, but also partly because he enjoys wrestling.
When Mike’s wealthy client Leo, played with quiet pathos by Burt Young, becomes too confused to mind his own affairs, Mike searches for his only daughter. Long estranged from her father, she is nowhere to be found. With the specter of the state becoming Leo’s guardian, Mike agrees to take on the role. The benefits seem so obvious on all sides. There’s a monthly stipend that will make all the difference for Mike’s family. However, in taking on the responsibility, Mike violates a wish of Leo’s, a desire that seems so unreasonable as to be ludicrous. It all appears innocuous at first glance: Win-win all around.
One day, a teen shows up at Leo’s door. Kyle is tall and lanky, doesn’t talk much, and turns out to be Leo’s grandson. As Jackie becomes increasingly irate at Kyle’s absent mother who doesn’t bother to call or check up on his whereabouts, Mike, as Leo’s guardian, must deal with the situation. Clearly, the kid cannot sleep on the streets. He’s given a bed at the Flaherty house. Days turn into weeks and the family adjusts to a new member. Mike has hit the jackpot. Kyle is a wrestling star.
Just as Mike and Jackie start to feel fiercely protective of Kyle, the wayward mother shows up, perhaps on the trail of her father’s money. She wants the job of caring for the old man, and Kyle to boot. It would be easy for Mike to prevent her, but he’s faced with the little ethical violation that seemed such a small thing at the time. It now threatens to sink the whole ship.
This movie is beautifully written and acted. Alex Shaffer as Kyle is not the troubled, angry teen of so many films, nor is he an angel who just needs a chance. He talks in monosyllables, like so many teens, holds his cards close to his chest, and sometimes explodes with the frustration of his unfair life. For the most part, however, he just wants to wrestle and grow out of his dependence on his mother. Part of him, though, still wishes she would come through, just this one time.
Giamatti and Ryan give Shaffer a run for his money. As an ordinary middle class American couple, they consider themselves the good guys. Yet, when a need comes knocking in the form of Kyle, they don’t rush to embrace being a do-gooder. They have no choice, they continually repeat. Decent people don’t let kids fend for themselves. Decent people are shocked and sickened by the neglect of Kyle’s mother. As they keep making the only decent choice, they keep being drawn into a situation for which they never planned. It has fallen in their lap and is now their problem.
The biggest punch of the story, however, is Mike’s realization that he really was never decent after all. It’s easy to be ethical when life is comfortable and there is no wolf howling at the door. When life became hard, he saw how quickly he dropped his moral high ground and how easy it was to rationalize it. Morality is never static, however, and his next test of character will be how he responds once he is exposed.
Rather than play out over an epic scale, this film focuses on a real-life type of situation. Motives are rarely purely good or purely bad in real life. “Win Win’s” characters act out of a variety of feelings and reasons. Even the mother is portrayed as mixed. It is in these murky waters that choices are made that color the rest of our lives. Rarely are we allowed a choice that seems stark and clear at the moment. Yet, choices turn out to have been clearly wrong or clearly right. “Win Win” operates in this moral universe and is an excellent film, the kind we wish Hollywood would make more often. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
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