Win Win (M). Director: Thomas McCarthy. Starring: Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale, Melanie Lynskey, Alex Shaffer, Burt Young. 106 minutes
Yesterday Frank Brennan wrote of the 'social determinants' (such as education, housing, income, connectedness) that have an impact on indivuduals' health. This calls to mind psychologist Abraham Maslow's 'hierarchy of need', which ranks physiological needs, safety, love and belonging, self-actualisation and self-transcendence as factors determining a person's growth and wellbeing.
The Salvos, among whom I had my religious upbringing, had a simplified version of this for their social outreach mantra. Founder Wiliam Booth spoke of 'soup, soap and salvation', evoking the need to meet people's physical needs along with their spiritual needs.
But 'salvation', stripped of its esoteric connotations, might also be seen to refer simply to emancipating individuals from social structures or material lacks that keep them oppressed. A new film Win Win offers several models of people in need of this kind of salvation, to varying degrees.
First there is Mike (Giamatti), a small-town lawyer who is reluctant to reveal to his wife — the mother of their two young daughters — Jackie (Ryan) that his practice is in dire financial straits. To his credit the financial difficulties are due to the fact that his focus is not on high profile, high paying cases, but on assisting elderly and put-down people with tricky legal minutiae.
One such client is Leo (Young), whose ailing mental health, and the fact that his only daughter is out of contact in another state, mean he is due to become a ward of the state, and to be forced from his house into a nursing home. He needs 'salvation' in the form of personal care that is arguably better provided by loved ones than an institution.
But Mike's compassion is overrun by his material needs. He quietly decides to exploit Leo's plight. He convinces a judge to allow him to become Leo's guardian — which will entitle him to a monthly payment from the State — on his word that he'll allow Leo to stay in his own house. But, not wanting the additional burden Leo will place on him and his family, Mike shifts him into the home anyway.
Win Win finds strength in understatement. Mike's moral and ethical breach occurs without fanfare or fingerprinting from unobtrusive director McCarthy. Giamatti is a likable actor, and his performance here is so plump with soulful, sad silences, that — rather than judging him — we