The American Spectator : Win Win

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Win Win

By James Bowman on 5.23.11 @ 6:02AM

A movie with some moral seriousness, which is more than we usually get from Hollywood these days.

An example of the violation of the law of Chekhov's gun that I mentioned in a recent review -- that is, the rule that, "if in Act I you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act" -- occurs in Thomas McCarthy's enjoyable Win Win. In an early scene we see the hero, Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) tinkering with a symbolic boiler in his New Jersey lawyer's office. Mike's legal practice isn't doing too well, and neither is the boiler. Of the latter we are told that it very well might explode unless it is fixed -- and that there is not enough money to fix it. If that's not an invitation to the boiler to explode at some strategic point later in the film, I don't know what is. But to Mr. McCarthy the boiler, its symbolic work done, has no further interest and is heard from no more. Any subsequent explosions will be only of the metaphorical kind.

Admittedly, it's a small point, but it's a flaw in the movie's construction, as is its waste of the great Jeffrey Tambor as Stephen Vigman, Mike's associate and his assistant wrestling coach who more or less drops out of the movie half-way through, having been given nothing of importance to do hitherto. The time spent on Mike's much less interesting friend Terry (Bobby Cannavale) and his failed marriage also seems to me to be wasted, as it adds little or nothing to the movie's two main stories. One of these is about Mike's conscience and the breach of professional ethics he commits to save his business, and the other is about a young runaway named Kyle (Alex Shaffer) who transforms the fortunes of his wrestling team.

Kyle is the grandson of Leo (Burt Young), an old man drifting into senility at whose expense Mike commits the shady deed aforementioned. Kyle, on the run from a neglectful mother (Melanie Lynskey) back in Ohio, arrives in New Jersey in the vain hope of getting from his grandfather some of the parental attention his mother is unable or unwilling to give, but he ends up getting it instead from Mike and his wife, Jackie (Amy Ryan), whose basic decency and goodness is attested by their willingness, in effect, to adopt him. But Mike's ulterior motive, as suggested to us by Kyle's wrestling prowess, once again becomes the source of a dramatic conflict that largely takes place within Mike's conscience. I hope I don't have to issue a spoiler alert to mention that conscience wins out in the end.

For that is the principal reason why, in spite of its flaws, this is a movie worth watching. Hollywood used to turn out this kind of vaguely inspirational and uplifting moral tale all the time, but it has got out of the habit in recent years. This is partly because the audience for first-run pictures used to be middle-class adults but is now heavily weighted towards teenage boys with little or no interest in moral questions. But it also has to do with the general degradation of moral thought -- not to say morality itself -- in our public life. In the media culture, the only sin is the sin -- if sin it be -- of hypocrisy, so it's not too surprising that Mike's moral crisis tends to be seen through that lens too. At times we have the feeling that, to Mr. McCarthy, whose earlier films The Station Agent and The Visitor are similarly shot through with moral earnestness, cares more that Mike has kept his moral peccadillo hidden from his loved ones than that he committed it in the first place.

But when it comes to morally serious movies we must take what we can get, and what we get in this case is a funny, poignant, and empathetic look at the sort of quiet desperation that ordinary middle-class life may come to. At one point as Kyle is about to wrestle, Mike, a former high school wrestler himself but a more dogged than talented one, asks him: "What's it like to be as good as you are?"

"I don't know," Kyle replies. "I guess it feels like I'm in control of everything, you know?"

"I do," says Mike. And so do we, even though such a state of control is likely to be for us as it is for Mike only aspirational.

About the Author

James Bowman, our movie and culture critic, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of Honor: A History and Media Madness: The Corruption of Our Political Culture, both published by Encounter Books.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (19) | Leave a comment

PJ| 5.23.11 @ 10:24AM

I'm so fed up with the aimless crap Hollywood is producing that I'm willing to give this a try when it comes out on DVD.

Seek| 5.23.11 @ 11:08AM

"Aimless crap?" Sounds like a good description of filmmaking from the "Golden Age," when moral questions rarely were dealt with, except in the most superficial way. Movies today are better. "Win Win" is but one of many examples.

jo blo| 5.23.11 @ 1:05PM

Movies in the Golden Age took certain morals for granted. Their moral compass always pointed in a certain direction. After all the relativism crap started a generation later, the compass has no bearing. This last is why PJ's assessment of current movies as 'aimless' is correct. All the 'moral questions' 'dealt with' by today's movies are contrivances, either along the lines of ridiculous, never-could-happen-in-real-life exercises presented by 'professors' of ethics, or which ignore universal principles of right and wrong, and as a result get stuck into needless quandries.

Alan Brooks| 5.23.11 @ 4:02PM

The moral of 'Titanic'?:
Don't film a senile old lady throwing her long-deceased lover's diamond in the ocean.

JLC| 5.23.11 @ 12:21PM

It's a small point on a small point, but didn't Nabokov state Checkov's Gun in a slightly different way: if you see a gun hanging on a cabin wall in Act I, you can be sure it's going to go off in Act III? I think that's in Speak, Memory but I can't recall exactly and damned if I'm going to look it up. Which is a shame since I'm sure his wording was better than I remember.

His point was that it's a cliche, an obvious convention, and, as such, the opposite of artful.

Pretty sure he wasn't criticizing Chekhov. I always think of the Bad Seed as a play (the movie version of it, anyway) so "well-constructed" that it's unintentionally and hysterically funny.

Occam's Tool| 5.23.11 @ 1:33PM

I am never concerned about explosive boilers in Lawyer's offices, with one or two personal exceptions.

Marion| 5.23.11 @ 3:13PM

Thank you for reviewing Win Win. I saw the movie this weekend and thought it was outstanding. Yes, there are some flaws - very minor however, and they do not detract from the story. I was really touched by the honesty of this movie - the dilemma of violating one's own code of ethics while trying to survive in a tough situation. The acting is quite good and you can't help but feel touched and uplifted by this poignant story. Paul Giamatti is great, as ususal, Bobby Cannavale, is so over the top that he is quite funny, Amy Ryan is a pleasure to watch and Alex Shaffer who plays the young Kyle, is very powerful in his understated portrayal. I highly recommend the movie! It's one of those that you think about long after you have left the theater and even into the next day.

PJ| 5.23.11 @ 10:53PM

You know Marion, James Bowman writes some excellent reviews but yours is better. Your review gets to the point using less words. If opportunity arises I think I will see it on the big screen.

Marion| 5.26.11 @ 1:42PM

PJ, Thanks for the compliment.

Tina B| 5.23.11 @ 7:59PM

Thanks to Mr. Bowman and you Marion, I'll check it out.

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Dee See| 5.23.11 @ 10:55PM

----Minor side shows indeed.

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even as our 4 decades of RED China set-up, sellout
and, now, finally, TREASON comes
to full bloom completion.

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gearjammer| 5.24.11 @ 8:59AM

do not go to this or any movie. You are giving Hollywood money. Hollywood is a political enemey. They will do everyting to re elect Obama and dem majorities. Sacrifice something for our nation you selfish, narcisstic, right wing weaklings. we are not asking you to fight at Valley Forge-just deny yourself a movies or two. You can't count on the Right to Fight. Pragmatic Republicans like me will save the country.

john hanson| 5.25.11 @ 2:36AM

Win Win's moral content is deeper and bolder than James Bowman, John Podhoretz, and other movie critics seem to understand. The movie is Christian apologetics argued using straightforward symbolic language. The symbolism of the boiler which Bowman mentions is followed up by lots of symbolism with respect to Kyle, who is literally a godsend to most of the characters, for nearly all of them need help with their lives, including the Cannavale character, Terry. All end up better human beings because of Kyle, who is nothing less than an angel sent by a God who works in mysterious ways. Note the symbols: Kyles oddly full, ultra-blond hair is symbolic of a halo; Kyle also has tatoos of proto-wings on his back, suggesting a junior angel, and another celestial symbol on his back; and he has a slightly odd voice, underscoring a certain otherness. In contrast to angel-come-to-earth-to-help movies in days of yore, his ministrations are subtle, just little well timed nudges and encouragements. These are given authority by his consummate athletic skill, especially his signature move of rising up to throw off one's burdens when despair and resignation would be the natural course in the wrestling match of life. Mike, Terry, the nerdy wrestler Schemler, and of course, Leo Poplar all see improvement in their lives, if not perfect and absolute solutions to their problems, symbolized again by cutting down a dead tree in Mike's yard. Even Kyle's aimless, irresponsible mother experiences a slight epiphany and redemption. If this movie reminds me of anything, it is the songs of Josh Groban, which are not merely wholesome and clean, but also surreptitiously Christian, the love they express being love of God, not mere romantic love. Win Win dares to be more explicit than this, but its symbols seem lost even on intelligent people in our obtuse, hyper-literal world.

Marion| 5.26.11 @ 1:38PM

Mr. Hanson,
Thank you for your very interesting comments. Kyle certainly is a force for good and does affect everyone in his life in a positive way.

dee see| 5.29.11 @ 6:23AM

We all know Hollywood's abysmal record of
timely programming all during the Soviet and
nazi halocausts (no treatment at all).

What's esp galling about the current denial
mode viz a viz Rockefeller/Gates/CFR EUGENICS etc --is that unlike the 30s
--no one now can claim they don't know.

---------------------------How monstrous is that?