Food for thought, and then some.

Rating: 7/10 (9 October 2013)

Films that offer food for thought on complicated, yet day-to-day issues may be aplenty, but this one took some figuring out just to understand the premise of it, and that's usually not a very good thing. However deep you want to dig into the case at hand in 'Win Win' and from whichever angle you may try to look at it, Mike comes out being a smart and kind man who should have known and judged better than to try to pull a 'stunt' like this... even if the government would have done the very exact same thing with Leo (as I understand it). But then invincible, precocious Kyle comes into the picture, with that, ahem, magical chant: ''Whatever the f*** it takes!''. Then we come to learn that Leo may have not been such a very nice man when raising his daughter Cindy (wonderfully and anti-stereotypically played by Melanie 'Two and a half men' Lynskey), who is now subsequently dealing with substance abuse (and judging by her looks, she is a very young mom to Kyle). You can see where this is going... Things are not always, or rather never, as simple and black and white as they should or appear to be...
I'm not exactly sure how well it all worked, but it is at least an original, thought provoking film, at times endearing and funny, and throughout simply very enjoyable, not in the least because of the great acting of all involved. Kudos especially to Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan and newcomer Alex Schaffer.
A big 7 out of 10 for now.