CHARMING FILM

BOY HELPED BY CLOSE FAMILY CONNECTION

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Director George Clooney tells the story of how a young boy grows up without a father on Long Island.

Daniel Ranieri plays a Young JR, as he moves into his grandpa’s house with his mother after the single mom falls five months behind in the rent. 

Lili Rabe plays mom. Rabe shows unconditional love for the child even though his father is a drunken fool.

Christopher Lloyd has a small part as grandpa.

Grandpa’s house is not so bad because Uncle Charlie lives there too, while operating a neighborhood bar.

Ben Affleck plays the charismatic uncle who spends his life tending bar and talking to the local regulars while serving them drinks. But Uncle Charlie takes in JR as well, bringing him along as he grows up in the family home.

Clooney takes everyone back to the mid-seventies with the big American cars and a Seventies soundtrack playing over most scenes as the characters come and go from the small early last century, single family home.

Ranieri does a good job playing that impressionable, innocent youth still looking up to adults to connect with.

Clooney spends ample time developing this linear narrative as well as the characters intersecting the scenes from JR’s youth through to adulthood. 

Ty Sheridan then steps in the script just as JR becomes a young adult.

After receiving encouragement throughout his youth to read a lot, JR gets ready for the big day when he receives the college admission letter in the mail.

Clooney creates several poignant moments with the Young JR and continues on compelling the narrative forward with an equally likeable adult JR meeting college dorm roommates, and of course, falling in love for the first time.

The Director does well with this coming of age genre film, after first trying the spot behind the camera in a parody spy genre film, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), and Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) and also The Monuments Men (2014), all of which are slightly different storytelling takes on biopic characters.

The Tender Bar is put together as true to life as possible with plenty of realism even in regard to the outcome of relationships the script goes out of the way to develop. The story remains a bit charming though even when relationships do not work out as hoped.

Affleck carries the first half of the narrative with a kind of toned down, much older, and less confrontational character used in Good Will Hunting (1997). When Charlie’s nephew is all grown up and ready to go off to college, Ty Sheridan compels the narrative with the same genuinely charming personality that he would have, having been brought up by his charming uncle.

Anyway, nothing works out exacetly the way life has been planned, even after a biopic has been given the Hollywood treatment.

The Tender Bar is currently Streaming on Amazon Prime.