Director Thomas McCarthy is better than most American directors at making films that thoroughly explore what makes human beings tick. His third feature, ‘Win Win,’ stands as another profoundly rewarding humanist work.

Gracefully straddling the line between comedy and drama, ‘Win Win’ is neither cheap nor manipulative, a feat that’s difficult to pull off when seemingly every film of the like succumbs to one trap or the other. Boasting a marvelously nuanced performance from one of our great actors, Paul Giamatti, at its core, as well as a handful of terrific talents surrounding him, the film is its own kind of marvel.

Mike Flaherty (Giamatti) has money problems. His law practice is treading water, the boiler in the basement requires thousands in repairs, and he needs to get a contractor to remove the tree in his yard. To stay afloat, he makes an illegal but harmless deal concerning an incapacitated client, Leo Poplar (Burt Young), while coaching the wrestling team at New Providence High School. Despite the work Mike and his assistant, Stephen Vigman (Jeffrey Tambor) put in, the team can’t win a single match.

To Mike’s great fortune, it just so happens that Leo’s nephew,Kyle (Alex Shaffer), is a one-time state champion wrestler back in Ohio. A quiet punk with dyed hair, Kyle ran away from home due to a traumatic relationship with his mother, and Mike decides to take him in and encourages him to join the wrestling team. At first, Kyle is hesitant to return to the sport,but he warms up to Mike’s mentoring and picks up the sport again.

Mike and Kyle are exactly what the other needs, until Kyle’s druggie mom shows up and threatens to ruin all that they worked so hard to achieve.

In the same vein as McCarthy’s prior works, ‘Win Win’ bears neither a shaky nor silky smooth aesthetic, and is not purposefully cheap-looking or overstylized. Set in suburban New Jersey,the film is as natural and realistic as your modern comedy-drama gets. McCarthy doesn’t attempt to create a world as a more ambitious director might, and instead presents the environment as is. Every image is perfectly crisp, the fall air is palpably chilly, and the interiors are refreshingly unblemished. This devotion to reality might not seem hugely important, but it contributes immeasurably to the film’s overall aesthetic, imbuing the performances with a more organic feel and allowing the audience to embrace a world that might look unfamiliar simply because it is not often displayed on the silver screen.

The exquisite naturalness of McCarthy’s work intensifies the drama and lightens the comedy in a fashion that only the likes of Alexander Payne (‘Sideways’) can match these days. Giamatti as Mike is the perfect McCarthian leading man, just as comfortable setting his blood to boil for a stirring pep talk as he is exchanging witty remarks with his assistant coach. When Mike confronts Kyle’s mother, you feel his pain. But as an imperfect patriarch and role model, he unselfishly allows you to feel the mother’s pain, too.

‘Win Win’ is no more a wrestling movie than ‘Raging Bull’ is a boxing movie or ‘Downhill Racer’ is a skiing movie. As he peels back the layers of a seemingly normal cast of characters, McCarthy reveals their faults and insecurities and, in turn, brings out the best in them. For Kyle, wrestling is a cathartic means of exercising one’s own demons; and for Mike, who feels he still has something to prove,watching Kyle validates his prowess as a teacher and father figure. He is not greedy or self-involved in the slightest and he isn’t out to beat anyone, but as McCarthy eloquently demonstrates, the definition of a champion is supremely flexible.

smlittma@syr.edu

Published on April 27, 2011 at 12:00 pm