Win Win (2011)

Just the simple act of describing the plot of Win Win sounds like a good solid way of spending your movie time- Paul Giamatti is a high-school wrestling coach and lawyer, who takes a teenage boy runaway under his wing, who happens to be a wrestling savant. If anything it's definitely sounds like a Paul Giamatti movie - you can just imagine what it'll be like in your head. Few laughs, few dramatic emotional moments and Bob's your brother's cousin. My main and only issue with the flick is that it's just not especially funny. In fact, it's very similar to Fox's other Sundance aquesition, Cedar Rapids- in that they gave away all the funniest bits in the trailer. But if you're less picky, unlike me, then there's a lot to like. I'm pretty happy to watch anything with Jeffrey Tambor and Bobby Carnivalle and they are great as the assistant coaches and Amy Ryan gets to practice her 'Nuy-Jousey' accent but it's definitely Giamatti's movie doing that introspective vaugely-dodgy nice-guy schtick, he does. The 2kids playing the young wrestler Kyle and his friend, Stemler- Alex Schafer and David Thomson, respectively are brilliant and act like old hands.
And the story/plot is fairly well-done. All the characters are identifiable and likeable; even the characters of Kyle's mother and her lawyer played by accomplished comedy actresses Melanie Lyndsky and Margo Martindale who are the antagonists, are pretty understandable and maybe even forgivable in spite of their choices and their actions are just a lil less ethical than the rest. So you have to give actor/writer/director Tom MaCarthy for making such a light, even-handed yarn but it doesn't really stretch any further than that really but if it turned up from LoveFilm or you caught it at 9.35pm on a Sunday on BBC2 in a few years, it wouldn't be pretty okay...
I watched Win Win (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Black Narcissus (1947)....