Win Win

Second-rate attorney Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) moonlights as a high school wrestling coach because clients aren’t lining up for his services in the small town he calls home. The kindly, ordinary, 40-something man has one goal in life: to keep his family happy. And so one day, under the burden of a discreditable financial situation, he decides to take a rather dodgy step, thanks to which he can expect a fat paycheck from an aging client named Leo Poplar (the legendary Burt Young). But Mike’s momentary moral lapse catches up with him when he chances upon Leo’s rebellious grandson. In his latest effort, presented at Sundance this January, the director of the popular titles The Station Agent and The Visitor once again relies on his favorite, well-oiled plot scheme: the script for Win Win is also grounded in an encounter between two diametrically opposed individuals who are forced by unusual circumstances to temporarily share the same environment and, as a result, to look at their lives from a new perspective.