Win Win (McCarthy, 2011)
Paul Giamatti is always a welcome presence on our screens and his win at this week’s Golden Globes turned my head just long enough to register that the Golden Globes has, indeed, just been on.
He won for the new Alexander Payne film The Holdovers, which opens in New Zealand cinemas in a week or two. I’ll be reviewing that for RNZ’s At the Movies on 24 January.
He’s still (probably) most famous for another Alexander Payne film, Sideways, but I am very fond of him in full ape makeup for Tim Burton’s misfiring 2001 Planet of the Apes remake and Win Win from 2011:
Thomas McCarthy’s Win Win is a welcome return to the screen for the writer-director who gave us The Station Agent and The Visitor. Paul Giamatti stars as a small town New Jersey lawyer fallen on hard times. One tiny lie has unintended consequences and he finds himself guardian of marbles-losing Burt Young (Rocky) and looking after the old man’s grandson (Alex Shaffer). Writer McCarthy makes every character rich and director McCarthy ensures that every actor is given a chance to shine – Amy Ryan, Jeffrey Tambor and particularly New Zealander Melanie Lynskey who proves once again that she is one of the best in the business.
Also featured in that Capital Times review from September 2011: the much missed Reel Brazil Film Festival, Shark Night 3D, eventual Oscar-winner The Help, self-funded local The Holy Roller, “watchable” rom-com Friends With Benefits and music documentary Upside Down: The Creation Records Story (“… short on insight beyond ‘we were so mental, he was so mental’ but just like Live Forever, the smartest person in the film is Noël Gallagher from Oasis”).
Where to watch Win Win
Aotearoa & Australia: Streaming on Disney+
USA & UK: Digital rental
