Win Win Directed by: Thomas McCarthy Starring: Paul Giammati, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Ryan Rating: R Release Date: March 18, 2011
TRAILER SCORE: 7/10
MY THOUGHTS: The trailer for Win Win starts off strong, with a glimpse into the life of the main character. It's impressive the sense of self that the trailer establishes early on. Sure, there's the obligatory voice-over that forces some exposition of the character, but it's offset with the dry humor that makes me think that this movie could easily be a charmer.
Giamatti is a master of dry humor, as he proved in Sideways and here, he seems to be up to his crazy mid-life crisis antics again, but judging from the trailer, this movie has a very different heart to it. In the few moments that she's in, Amy Ryan is charming, a definite contrast to her turn in Gone Baby Gone so it'll be nice to see her take a stab at a much more sincere role.
The only thing that was somewhat distracting in the trailer is the path that we begin to see it take about halfway through. It becomes this weird mash-up of a dry humored, mid-life crisis comedy and The Blind Side. Okay, maybe that's a little extreme but the whole "underachiever who turns out to be really good at something, but is almost derailed by personal problems and/or problems at home" is getting so big, I'm expecting it's own section at Blockbuster any day now. Win Win starts out promising, but as it delves into cliches and melodramatics, I can't help but lose a little interest. Still, it might be worth a shot.