I've been wanting to watch movies. Seems a little significant. I'm branching out a little from my usual reruns and Hallmark movies- my security blanket I guess. This time I opened up Amazon Prime Video and quickly came across The Tender Bar. It had Ben Affleck and good ratings. That's all I needed to see. I settled in and hit play. Let's get the basics out of the way. The movie is based on a true story of journalist JR Moehringer and his memoir. It is directed by George Clooney. 3.75/5 stars
The Tender Bar is a coming-of-age movie, set in the 1970s, that follows the life of JR. It is a movie about who we are, what motivates us, what choices we make, and how a boy becomes a man. It is a movie about relationships - all the usual suspects...mom, dad, love interest. There are the relationships with the people who always find a way to show up and those who are somehow always in the background. But it also explores relationships within one's self-past, present, and future.
The movie follows a quiet boy and watches him take in the world around him. He is yo-yo'd here and there and follows along dutifully. He is always looking and searching. He is observant and it serves him well. I remember thinking at one point in the movie - during his pining for his love interest - just how many movies explore this theme. And really, many of the themes shown are commonly explored. How do we keep coming up with something original? This may cause some to not like the movie. Yet, I was completely enthralled. I wanted more of everybody on screen - well, except for a couple people maybe. You can decide for yourself who they are.
I always really enjoy these sorts of movies- movies that have intellectual and interesting characters - but we don't see them in a traditional setting. Characters who think and analyze and offer wisdom with such authority - even if it's dreadfully wrong (may or may not be the case for this movie).
These moments always makes me stop and think. Think about people. Think about our commonality. Our hearts, our minds, our goals, our vulnerability - the human experience. I always feel a little inadequate when seeing this play out on screen. Listening to the conversations and the analysis of people and the observations...I feel like I don't have a good understanding of people. At all. Seeing people in colleges like Yale and the discussions among the students and professors...Sometimes it leaves me feeling like I should have pushed myself so much more, read so much more, and taken in so much more.
I loved the scenes with JR and his Uncle Charlie, played by Ben Affleck. This was the movie and Ben Affleck, err Uncle Charlie, was fascinating. The bar, the education, the advice, and the life lived there played out well on screen. Though I do feel a bit conflicted about liking it when reminding myself it was a young boy's real life.
We see a cast of characters and well cast characters.
It was a treat to have Christopher Lloyd on screen. But I do have two gripes with the movie. The first being the casting of young JR (Daniel Ranieri) and college JR (Tye Sheridan)- they do not look like they are the same character. Dark hair and long, dark lashes, dark eyes...then we see lighter hair, barely there lashes, and light eyes. Now, I can forgive it because I thoroughly enjoyed seeing both actors on screen. But it still perplexed me. Maybe I missed something. I felt the characters got good amounts of time to develop on screen. I didn't feel like it was choppy or that the dynamics were confusing. I noticed (because the movie made you notice) the consistency of the frequent flyers in the bar who were so invested in each other's lives and JR's. Apparently the memoir delves more into the lives of those at the bar. I imagine it would have also played well on screen.
I appreciated that the movie took the time to point out the parallels in his life - when he was trying over and over to meet some expectation believing that would be enough. We see the lingering struggles of those early years.
This movie gave me Good Will Hunting vibes from the beginning and with the ending. Maybe it was because Ben Affleck was in it. Maybe it was the accent (and, no, it doesn't take place in Boston-sorry, Boston, for thinking the accent sounds the same). Maybe it was the intellectual minds being shown "out of place" or "out of class." I look forward to watching the movie again. While it is not lost on me this was the depiction of someone's life and struggles and emotional battles, I still found it to be inspiring. But, this brings me to my second gripe. I found myself invested in the lives of the people on screen and when it was over, I wasn't ready. I had a few tears developing and could feel through the screen just what those few moments meant to those characters.
And. I. Wanted. More.
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