After seeing the trailers for “the Tender Bar” on the big screen and sprinkled all over the internet, I caved in and caught the film over the weekend on Amazon Prime streaming.
While it’s full of clichés as one of those young man “coming-of-age” stories, I found it enjoyable for two main reasons: Affleck’s portrayal of “Uncle Charlie ‘’ and the soundtrack.
It also excels in set design and costuming – corduroy everywhere!
The soundtrack features hits from musicians like Steely Dan, Jackson Browne, DEVO and Pablo Cruise.
Outside of that, it takes forever to get to the point and you can see the ending coming a mile away.
It’s predictable and the pacing is weird when bouncing between memories and events.
The Tender Bar is a coming-of-age drama film directed by George Clooney from a screenplay by William Monahan.
The film is an adaptation of the 2005 memoir of the same name by J.R. Moehringer, and recounts Moehringer’s life growing up on Long Island.
It stars Ben Affleck, Tye Sheridan, Daniel Ranieri, Lily Rabe, Max Martini, and Christopher Lloyd.
The movie is rated R for language throughout and some sexual content and clocks in at 104 minutes long.
We start out with early 1970s JR Maguire (Ranieri) and his mother Dorothy (Rabe) heading home to Grandpa Maguire’s (Lloyd) house after failure to pay rent on their apartment.
Well, that and being divorced from JR’s estranged father dubbed “The Voice” (Martini) since he only ever hears him on the radio and hardly sees him in person.
Dorothy makes a point of turning off the radio anytime she hears his voice; which leads to struggles for her son.
On their way into town, they come across Uncle Charlie Maguire (Affleck) playing a softball game with a group of friends.
They reunite at the house amongst a variety of cousins and extended family members – all of which have returned home to regroup from various personal issues.
It’s a house full of warmth and love in its own way though grandpa isn’t too keen on putting them all up in the meantime.
JR spends his time struggling with his identity while his mom tries to hold down a job that will provide enough for them to move out.
Also, during this time, JR is having problems at school because everyone asks him what his name “JR” stands for and all he can say is that it means junior.
His dad pops in once or twice but is overall absent and delinquent in paying his child support.
Uncle Charlie takes JR under his wing and shares his “man sciences” wisdom with his nephew about how to be a man.
Uncle Charlie owns and operates “The Dickens” bar and helps JR foster his love for reading and a career goal as a writer when he’s older.
That also includes pearls of wisdom from Charlie’s regular patrons and friends.
And as time passes, JR struggles to consolidate his fractured relationship with his father and how key Charlie was to his growth and development.
Overall, it takes a long time to get to the point but The Tender Bar is a capsule of nostalgia and largely positive outcomes.
