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WIN WIN If life is indeed about enjoying the little things, then it's entirely appropriate that the best scenes in Win Win are the little slice-of-life ones. Coming off a great performance in Barney's Version, Paul Giamatti again works wonders with his sad-sack routine — here, he's Mike Flaherty, a struggling lawyer and high-school wrestling coach whose backhanded dealing with a dementia-afflicted client (Burt Young) eventually leads to the elderly man's grandson, a troubled runaway named Kyle (Alex Shaffer), entering his life. Mike and his wife Jackie (a terrific turn by Gone Baby Gone's Amy Ryan) reluctantly decide to help Kyle out, only to grow genuinely attached to him. But this bond gets threatened when Kyle's irresponsible mother (Melanie Lynskey) turns up, just out of rehab and ready to drag her unwilling son home. Writer-director Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent) occasionally stumbles into unlikely scenarios that generally exist only in the movies, but he makes such slip-ups easy to ignore (or excuse) because the vast majority of the picture strikes the right notes in terms of its characters and the ways in which they interact with each other. Win Win is by no means a perfect movie, but it's a lovely one that deserves its designation as one of the top-seeded films currently in theaters. ***1/2
YOUR HIGHNESS As screen couplings go, the less charitable might gaze upon the union of Danny McBride and Natalie Portman and be reminded of Princess Leia forced to sit half-naked and chained next to Jabba the Hutt. But this unlikely match is the least of the problems plaguing Your Highness. God almighty, this is one awful movie, a real feat considering that even the most juvenile of comedies can score at least a couple of guffaws off a steady stream of pot and dick jokes. But this stinkbomb manages the unpardonable sin of being boring for long stretches of time as well as unfunny all the time. As a dim prince, McBride's stoner act can't touch that of either Cheech or Chong; as his heroic brother, James Franco seems as out of it as he was hosting the Oscars; as a warrior woman, Portman somehow maintains her dignity while wasting her talents; and as a damsel in distress, Zooey Deschanel is unpardonably ill-utilized. Meanwhile, a minotaur tries to engage in butt-fucking before getting his appendage lopped off, McBride and Franco are forced to give a hand job to a lecherous Yoda rip-off, and a traitor (Toby Jones) turns out to be as junk-free as a Ken doll. For comparable entertainment value, you might as well watch a Renaissance Festival employee take a leak behind the costume and pottery booths. *
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