A boy growing up on Long Island seeks out father figures among the patrons at his uncle’s bar.
“The Tender Bar” is directed by George Clooney and based on the memoir of J.R. Maguire. J.R. is a poor, lonely kid, but he can always rely on his Uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck). Uncle Charlie is the father figure in his life as his real-life father is absent. Charlie is a bartender but spouts words of wisdom and life advice to J.R. and encourages him to read and because of this, J.R. wants to become a writer.
J.R. is first played by the young Daniel Ranieri, and the older version is played by Tye Sheridan. Sheridan gives a fine performance as does Ranieri. The problem is not with the performances, I just did not find J.R. to be a particularly compelling character. As a coming-of-age story, J.R. does not struggle with anything. Sure, he has some romantic troubles, and his real father is not in the picture, but he knows who he is. There is no identity struggle or change in his character. We don’t even know if J.R. is a good writer. There is so little character development with him that I felt that J.R. should not even be the protagonist.
Ben Affleck is the highlight of the film, I would say. He was charming, funny, and endearing. It is easy to see why J.R. would take to him so much. Given how the movie also takes to him, I think that Affleck’s Uncle Charlie should have been the protagonist of the film, that way we could see the way he influenced his nephew to become a great writer.
It was nice to see Lily Rabe in something other than “American Horror Story.” She plays J.R.’s mother, who is very hardworking and supportive but also pushes him to go to an Ivy League college. Lastly, Christopher Llyod plays J.R.’s grandfather, it was also nice to see him, but I wish he had more to do in the film. He mostly just plays a cranky old man.
The absentee father plot point has been done millions of times and it gets tiring after a while. The fact that the film keeps coming back to this point was strange, but I know it provides drama that the film needs to have. Otherwise, there would be no real conflict. I just felt that J.R. was never particularly bothered about his absentee father. He seemed to make peace with that fact at a young age and knows that Uncle Charlie is really the father in his life.
Another gripe I had about the film was that there was too much narration. While it is nice to hear the voice of Ron Livingston, the constant telling’s of J.R. thoughts grated on my nerves. I feel like the film was so boring that they needed to add an extra element to try to keep the audience engaged.
Overall, I just did not find J.R.’s life very interesting. I would say his story is not worth making a movie out of but I did chuckle at some of the jokes in the film and liked Ben Affleck’s performance. I hope that Clooney finds better projects to direct in the future as his last few films have been lackluster.
Now playing in select theaters and on Amazon Prime Video January 7th
