lsanderson | Win Win (2011) NYT Critics' Pick

Paul Giamatti, left, with Alex Shaffer in “Win Win,” directed by Tom McCarthy from his screenplay.
Riding the Wave of Life’s Indignities
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: March 17, 2011

There are actors who suffer nobly, with tragic and stoical reserve. Then there is Paul Giamatti. Squirrel cheeked and beetle browed, with rounded shoulders and a scratchy voice, he is a virtuoso of exasperation, a maestro of disappointment, an intrepid navigator through squalls of frustration and failure. Who else could have played John Adams, the most misunderestimated of the founding fathers, a great man and also a petty one, possessed of an outsize sense of grievance? Or Harvey Pekar, the Cleveland file clerk who wrung deadpan, misanthropic comic-book masterpieces from the grind of daily existence? More