Refreshingly "nice" tale.

Rating: 7/10 (20 September 2012)

Win Win is both emotional and light - which is pretty hard to do when you think about it - and, for that, director Tom McCarthy is to be congratulated. I think that there wouldn't be too many viewers who couldn't relate to one or more of the characters in this story. Mike (Paul Giamatti) is a struggling lawyer with bills piling up (mind you, I never personally met a struggling lawyer - maybe he lives in the most law-abiding town on the planet where no one needs legal representation or even conveyancing because no one wants to leave such a great environment! I kinda doubt that though so one has to wonder why he's struggling - given the hourly rate lawyers charge.
Anyway, in spite of somewhat mercenary motivation, Mike clearly does have a heart and makes every effort to locate his client Leo, an elderly slightly demented old man's daughter without success. She is a drug- addict who hasn't seen her dad in years and, it would seem, wants it to stay that way. However, unbeknown to Leo, he also has a grandson, Kyle, who shows up out of the blue and, since Mike has put Leo into a retirement facility - although he told the court that he would take care of Leo in his own home - Kyle has nowhere to stay.
Mike is also the local high school wrestling coach with a pretty mediocre team and when it turns out that Kyle is a very good wrestler, Mike persuades him to stay with him and his family and go to school and, of course, join the wrestling team. The insertion of Kyle into the team not only provides some wins at last but also motivates the rest of the boys to the point where they win their first big tournament. Kyle fits in well with Mike's family and the school and, perhaps, most importantly, with himself because when he arrived, he had a huge chip on his shoulder from having a lousy relationship with his (very young) mother Cindy (played by Kiwi actress, Melanie Lynskey - crazy Rose of Two-and-a-half men fame).
Everything is going well for a while. Leo, whilst not totally happy at the retirement home is contented enough. Mike's financial situation is relieved by the support payments he is getting for being Leo's guardian. Kyle is fitting in well with Mike's family and his new schoolmates and wrestling team friends. And then Cindy shows up. She SAYS she wants to look after her dad and take him back to Ohio with her where she wants to look after him - although it is obvious that all she really wants is, firstly, the $1500-a-month support payments and, ultimately, Leo's personal savings. Her arrival with a layer totally disrupts everything. Kyle wants nothing to do with her and Leo definitely doesn't want to leave his beloved home and go to Ohio and, of course, Mike stands to lose his "extra" income as well as his star wrestler (because Kyle completely flips out when his mother goes to his biggest match yet and gets disqualified.
If the ages of Melanie Lynskey and Alex Shaffer (who plays Kyle) are the ages of their characters, Cindy would have only been 15 or 16 when she gave birth and yet her father didn't even know he had a grandson.
When it seems that everything is going to fall apart, Mike's better nature takes over and he takes Leo back to his own house and agrees to monitor him there and, to get her off his and her father and son's back, agrees to pay Cindy the whole of the $1500 a month just to stay away. To make ends meet Mike takes an evening job as a bartender - which, as I say, seems a bit weird for a qualified lawyer. Whilst we aren't told so, I like to think that, after he finished school, Kyle might have gone to live with his grandpa and become a world champion wrestler with Mike as his manager. Then the title "Win Win" would certainly have come true.