Win Win is a pretty remarkable film, one that I feel confident will emerge as one of the year’s best films. It may not be the kind of film that I personally tend to develop an emotional bond with and return to over and over, but at the same time I can recognize high quality when I experience it. Win Win does so much right that it is rather difficult to come up with any criticism of this film. The story is very fresh, and somehow greater than the sum of its parts. My wife and I talked a long time after seeing this film at Angelika, marveling at how good it was. I consider it a must-see.

You very rarely see a modern film of this genera (indie-style dramatic comedy) that so effortlessly supports so main different narrative levels emanating from its basic story idea (a failing lawyer decides to run a small-time scam on an older client in order to supplement his shrinking income.) Most films would wind up picking one eventual narrative path (like the kid’s wrestling prowess, for example) and just sticking with that one thing, doing something fairly obvious and linear with it. But Win Win amazes with the subtle complexity it spins off from its initial starting point, and with the easy way it weaves all these plot lines together to produce a comprehensive human drama. It has stuff going on at all kinds of narrative levels – it has three different but inter-related family dramas and two independent but overlapping main character arcs developing simultaneously throughout the film. Supporting characters that would be throwaway humor in most indie dramatic comedies are here actually allowed to develop within their relationship to the main characters – I am mainly thinking of Amy Ryan’s role, the role of Paul Giamatti’s “crazy friend” (played delightfully and with great spontaneity by Bobby Cannavale) and the role of the geeky misfit on the wrestling team. This last character, Adam Stemler, struck me as seeming very, very real – they caught that type of geeky kid perfectly, and his eventual friendship with Kyle was beautifully done.

Paul Giamatti’s performance is superb, and he will definitely be in contention for the best actor award here at Irreviews (The Academy will probably skip over him, like they always do.) The kid playing Kyle (Alex Shaffer) is a wrestler who had never acted, but he gives a really solid performance – much like the hockey players who were taught to act in Miracle and wound up turning in really memorable performances. All the supporting performances are strong. But the real distinguishing feature of this film is the writing, the way all these different characters and storylines interact and develop. There is something so satisfying about the way the film comes together. It’s not flashy or easily defined, but it is extremely pleasing. And it has a great ending!

Don’t miss it – it’s really good.