Sometime between releasing “The Visitor” in 2007 and “Win Win” in 2011, independent filmmaker Tom McCarthy became Thomas McCarthy. The playwright, actor and director has been credited as the truncated “Tom” for his nearly 20 years, so why the change now?
Maybe it’s because “Thomas” has an aura of maturity and intellectual elitism that the everyman “Tom”doesn’t: Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Pynchon. For some reason, “Tom Jefferson” just doesn’t sound the same.
This theory can be quantified, somewhat, by looking at “Win Win,” which opens the Palm Beach International Film Festival Wednesday in West Palm Beach. It is the most mature of McCarthy’s three films. His previous efforts, “The Station Agent” and “The Visitor,” were flights of quirky whimsy about hermetic isolationists
brought out of their antisocial shells by the young, idealistic director who created them. “Win Win” is set, more stubbornly, in the real world, where creative loners don’t have life-changing epiphanies when they befriend reclusive dwarfs or discover the magic of drum circles. Rather, the patriarch at the head of “Win Win” Paul Giamatti’s Mike Flaherty, a pedestrian family man at a pedestrian law firm who makes some mistakes while trying to stay afloat in an inclement economy – is rooted in modern-day malaise. Because of this, “Win Win” doesn’t have the sparkle or vibrancy of McCarthy’s previous films, and it’s not nearly as fun. But it might be a better movie. As “Win Win” ambles on, irrespective of genre, it adds new layers to its narrative fabric, offering a number of flawed and all-too-real characters that are never demonized or caricatured.
In some ways, the film is pure McCarthy. Like his previous movies, it tells a story predicated on unlikely friendships. McCarthy is adept at showcasing the vagaries of happenstance – of the way fate’s ripple effect of surprises leads one decision to another. In “Win Win,” this philosophical game of dominos plays out when Mike, who moonlights as a high-school wrestling coach, discovers a seemingly wayward teen (Alex Shaffer) on the doorstep of the home of the feeble senior citizen (Burt Young) he has decided to sponsor. What begins as Mike’s desperate angling for government money becomes the start of something more, when the boy is revealed to be a former wrestling champion who can bring new life to Mike’s struggling team.
“Win Win” can’t help but grow slightly programmatic in its rush to find closure in the messy, never-ending loop of life. But the fact is that McCarthy, in full “Thomas” mode, finally recognizes that frustration and banality usually trump quirk and whimsy for most of us, and easy solutions cannot always be found.
McCarthy is less of a writerly maverick this time around, but in its place is the voice of a man who understands that fairytales, be they rural, urban or suburban, are so pre-Recession.
“Win Win”screens at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Muvico Parisian at CityPlace, 545 Hibiscus St., West Palm Beach.
