George Clooney's "THE TENDER BAR"
Review by Dennis D. McDonald
This movie is filled with just about every coming-of-age-of-a-young-writer cliche you can imagine. It’s unoriginal, the dialog is predictable, and it’s populated by lovable-but-quirky characters all of whom you’ve seen before.
And yet…
I really enjoyed the movie. Casting is uniformly excellent. Ben Affleck is especially effective as “Uncle Charlie.” He’s a the movie’s lovable loser. He runs a bar in Long Island where he imparts trite but occasionally effective life lessons on young JR whose father is long absent.
What made the movie for me is director Clooney’s focus on one-on-one and small group interactions. We may have heard Uncle Charlie’s words of wisdom thousands of time before but the frequent exchanges between him and young JR have a ring of truth about them even though we know Uncle Charlie is a proud member of the “do as I say not as I do” school.
Young adult JR as portrayed by Tye Sheridan (whom I last saw in Spielberg’s Ready Player One) plays his role as an everyman who keeps plugging along despite frequent disappointment, driven by an intense desire not to disappoint his ne’er do well mom who has been pushing him all his life to attend Yale and become a lawyer. Christopher Lloyd as the gruff and flatulent grandfather is especially effective. It also helps that the movie is beautifully photographed.
I’ve always known that Clooney has a flair for comedy but the sensitivity show here with so many one on one conversations is impressive. It’s tempting to wonder what he would do with heavier or profound stuff stuff but for now this one’s a real gem.
Review copyright (c) 2022 by Dennis D. McDonald
