Great Wholehearted Drama

Rating: 9/10 (22 May 2011)

This is a nice piece of film work. See this, sit back, relax and prepare for a great story.
Mike(Paul Giamatti) & Jackie Flaherty live a fairly normal married life with their two young daughters. Mike is struggling with finding work as a lawyer and takes on the guardianship of one of his elderly clients Leo(Burt Young, Paulie in the 'Rocky' films) who is in the early stages of dementia in order to make a bit of needed money and places him in a home. When the son of Leo's estranged daughter turns up Mike & Jackie are in a dilemma since there is no contact with his mother and agree to take the troubled youth in. Whilst there he joins Mike's unsuccessful high school wrestling team which he coaches and turns out to be great at wrestling and a possible beacon of light to the teams losing streak.
Giamatti is on fine form and this performance is easily as good as his one in 'Sideways'. Nice to see Burt Young again. I'm liking Amy Ryan who has played in 'The Office' and I look forward to seeing her on the big screen again. Melanie Lynskey has a nice supporting role here and I've enjoyed her a lot in recent indie flavoured shows such as 'Up in the Air', 'Away We Go' & 'Leaves of Grass' and I think it's about time we see her in a leading role.
This film deals with issues of struggling to make ends meet in this economic climate as well as broken families and their struggles. But it shows that in all the desperation their can be moments of real triumph that remind us what life is all about.