Win It All: The Silver Linings Playbook for Gambling

For my blog entry this week, I decided to watch Win It All directed by Joe Swanberg and staring Jake Johnson. The film revolves around Johnson's character Eddie, who has a massive addiction to gambling. We see that Eddie lives off of doing odd jobs such as working a parking lot for Wrigley Field in Chicago. With the money he makes, Eddie goes drinking with his friends and gambles the rest away. The very nature of Eddie is that of a destructive personality, always destroying the good things in his life. This personality, in addition to his lazy and man-child lifestyle, make for a character who in most cases would be unlikable. After all, why should the audience become invested in a character who can't even take care of himself? Unlike the norm however, Eddie is immensely likeable, mainly due to the incredible performance and charisma from Johnson as well as the great writing of the character. Eddie feels real, something of a dreamer who always seems to have all the right answers while actually having none, all at the same time. One day however, Eddie's way of life is flipped upside down when an acquaintance of his gives him a job to watch a bag full of money for about a year. Of course, Eddie can't resist and starts to gamble the money, soon enough losing over 50,000 dollars’ worth of it. While the rest of the film details Eddie's attempts to earn the money back, we also see him begin to grow up and become a true adult.  

In a lot of ways, I found the film to be a coming of age tale, except instead of following a teen, the audience follows a character in either his late 20s or early 30s. This is an interesting outside-the-box idea that works perfectly in my opinion. As I mentioned, Eddie somehow feels very real and reminds me of people I know and even a little of myself. While I don't have a gambling problem nor does anyone else I know, it's Eddie's mindset and dialogue that is just immensely relatable. Most of his decisions, both good and bad, are largely due to his strong emotions. Even though Eddie is this negative personality, he begins to see the errors in his ways and tries to correct them. Over the course of the film, Eddie begins to spend more time with his family, he gets a job and a girlfriend, and finally even attempts to quit gambling. The basic premise of having to win the money back is merely the overall structure for the film to give it a narrative as much of the focus is actually placed on Eddie becoming more of an adult. Because of his charisma and the fact that he does try to improve, this makes for a film much deeper than the simple premise that explores addiction and maturing.

While Johnson is the main focus of the film, several other actors get to shine in roles as well such as Keenan Michael-Key, Joe Lo Truglio, and especially Aislinn Derbez as Eddie’s girlfriend. Like Eddie, these characters are all likeable, seem very real, and have good motivations.

The realism of the characters in the film are strongly due to the fantastic writing by Swanberg and Jake Johnson himself. Because of the realism, the jokes also feel more natural and like something I would hear on a normal day, making them much more funny in my opinion. Most comedy nowadays fails miserably due to the reliance on cursing, toilet humor, and gross outs. Also, the jokes in most comedies are things that real people never actually say. Here, the jokes are all real world and mix perfectly with the overall dramatic and sometimes even intense tone of the film. It reminds me heavily of the 2012 film Silver Linings Playbook, which also was a fantastic comedy-drama dealing with a mental illness.

Honestly, there was nothing actually bad about the film. The film could have had a less anti-climatic ending perhaps, or maybe the climactic scene could have been tweaked slightly, but these are all relatively small flaws. Aside from those flaws, this really is a fantastic small budget film. Because it is small budget, the film isn’t exactly extravagant. There is no fancy camerawork nor are there any extravagant costumes or sets, but in my opinion, that just added to the realism of the film. I definitely would recommend this film and would have to say that, so far, it is in my ten favorite films that I have seen so far this year.