Win Win (2011)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Tom McCarthy

Writers: Tom McCarthy, Joe Tiboni

Cinematographer: Oliver Bokelberg

Composer: Lyle Workman

Cast: Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Alex Shaffer, Bobby Cannavale, Jeffrey Tambor, Burt Young, Melanie Lynskey, Margo Martindale, David Thompson

A financially struggling lawyer (and part-time high school wrestling coach) dishonestly takes on the guardianship of a client in the early stages of dementia in order to pocket the $1,500 that comes with the accompanying (largely shirked) responsibility, but it’s a plan that becomes complicated somewhat by the arrival of the elderly man’s teenaged runaway grandson, who happens to be a very talented wrestler, in McCarthy’s amiable and generally entertaining if rather predictable and somewhat undercooked film, which feels more like the pilot for a promising television series than a fully realised feature. Iain.Stott