It’ll be as predictable a development as every detail in “The Tender Bar.” This is the kind of role that gets the Oscar nomination over the more deserving performance by the same actor in a different film, so don’t be surprised if Affleck gets one for this. He has fun with his profane dialogue and has chemistry with the regulars, including Max Casella and Michael Braun. I wouldn’t want him as my uncle, but my love of dive bars made me want him to be my bartender. I suppose that, given the familiarity of every aspect of the plot, the makers of this film were hoping you’d bring your own emotional baggage so you can do the heavy lifting instead of them.Īt least Affleck is very, very good here, turning a thankless role into something more memorable than the material suggests. Making matters worse, unlike Ranieri, whose eyes sparkle with wonder and admiration in every scene, Sheridan’s performance elicits no response from the viewer, even in the unnecessarily brutal final showdown with The Voice. Granted, this is a memoir, but when JR is telling you things you’re already seeing or have just seen, it makes his voice on the soundtrack extraneous. Unless it’s a film noir or Morgan Freeman is on the soundtrack, narration far too often symbolizes lazy screenwriting. “Narration!!” reads the opening line of my notes for “The Tender Bar.” I underlined it three times out of frustration.
I don’t have to tell you that JR will easily get into Yale with a full ride, will fall in love with a rich woman who uses his blue collar heart as a doormat, and will achieve his dream of being a writer despite the New York Times firing him because, just like this movie, most of his news stories are puff pieces about The Dickens Bar. Moehringer’s memoir, but I hope the book has more substance and less cliché. I don’t know how faithful William Monahan’s script is to J.R. “You keep coming back!” he says when Mom complains about how horrible a father he was. Grandpa wants Mom, JR, and Uncle Charlie out of his damn house. Nobody believes he can get in, least of all Grandpa ( Christopher Lloyd). Mom (as she’s billed) wants JR to go to Yale. Uncle Charlie, on the other hand, is not so lucky. At least he doesn’t get beaten up for demanding his dough. My mind drifted to the pissed off paperboy from “Better Off Dead,” who constantly screamed “I want my two dollars!!” whenever he saw John Cusack. Another unsuccessful running joke is the reason why Uncle Charlie gets angry whenever The Voice shows up-apparently he owes Charlie 30 dollars.
One of many running jokes that never works (but would inspire a great drinking game to pass your time) is the response whenever JR introduces himself. The Voice shows up every so often to predictably disappoint the young JR, who is played in an excellent debut by Daniel Ranieri, and to infuriate the older JR, who is played by Tye Sheridan with just as much disinterest as his director puts into shooting him. These folks have lots of radios to pummel. Whenever anyone hears The Voice on the radio, they immediately knock over or destroy the radio. Considering radio stations have call letters and physical locations in 1973, it shouldn’t be too hard to find this deadbeat. JR listens to The Voice whenever he can, while he and his mother ( Lily Rabe) wonder where he is. These lessons are necessary because, you guessed it, JR’s got daddy issues exacerbated by his missing Papa, a radio DJ nicknamed “The Voice” ( Max Martini).
Instead, he instructs his young nephew JR in the fine art of being a man. Unlike Joseph Cotten’s more famous namesake from “ Shadow of a Doubt,” Uncle Charlie doesn’t murder people and terrorize his sister’s kid the star rating would be higher if he did. Uncle Ben, or rather, Uncle Charlie as Affleck’s character is christened, runs a bar on Long Island called The Dickens Bar.
This kind of uncle is embodied here by Ben Affleck, whose presence made me incorrectly assume this movie took place in Boston. You think back on him with fondness, as he was so much larger than life in your youth, and that affection buffs off the edges you unwillingly recall as an adult. He can even get the everlasting gobstopper crap beaten out of him, and your hazy affection for his toughness won’t waver. You know this one he’s the tough guy who cusses in front of you when you’re a kid, promises to always tell you the truth, and gives you romantic advice that will prove useless.
We’ve had the cool, gay uncle in “ Uncle Frank” and the big-hearted, sensitive uncle in “C’mon C’mon.” “The Tender Bar” has the straight-shooting, honest uncle whose true self gets poisoned by nostalgia. We’re in the age of the uncle movie, and their influential characters run the gamut of stereotypes.