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Win Win

WIN WIN (Tom McCarthy). See listing. Rating: NNNN


Win Win is one of those movies that grows in stature as you watch it. It starts out as a lightweight dramedy perfectly attuned to Paul Giamatti’s uniquely agitated warmth – the guy can make panic attacks funny – and slowly accrues detail and emotional heft until we find ourselves somewhere very different.

Giamatti plays Mike, a struggling New Jersey lawyer and wrestling coach who winds up taking in the grandson (Alex Shaffer) of an elderly client (Burt Young) – and discovering that the kid’s a wrestling prodigy. Mike’s good fortune is clouded by the fact that his guardianship of the boy’s grandfather involves an ethical stumble that could get him disbarred.

Writer/director Tom McCarthy, who made The Station Agent and The Visitor, lets the story develop naturalistically, which means the first half skirts feeling aimless while Giamatti, Shaffer, Amy Ryan and Bobby Cannavale build their characters. Stick with them. It’s worth it.

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