I like to think that I have lived a
fairly interesting life so far, but I am under no illusions that anyone would
ever care to read a book or watch a movie about it. It’s a good life and it’s
my own, but it just doesn’t have a narrative that would compel or interest
anyone with the possible exception of my closest friends and family.
Biographies need to have a little something special to them if they are going
to entertain, and it certainly doesn’t hurt if the subject is a
larger-than-life figure that everyone knows. The Tender Bar is
a fairly well made (if not mind-blowing) film about the life of Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist J.R. Moehringer that is mildly interesting in the
first half, a slog in the second, and ultimately has very little of interest to
say.
Directed
by George Clooney, The Tender Bar (a pretentious and awkward
name that I absolutely despise) is, in a word, adequate. The cinematography is
fine (with the exception of a goofy-looking zoom-in here or there), the acting
is fine (Ben Affleck as Uncle Charlie is the clear standout), and the script
is, you guessed it, fine. The first third of the film that focuses on a younger
Moehringer (played by Daniel Ranieri) with occasional jumps to Tye Sheridan’s
version of the character a few years later is interesting enough with its
themes of fatherhood and family, giving the proceedings a nostalgic feel
despite the commonplace tropes of the story. But when the narrative moves
completely over to Sheridan the pacing slows to a nasty crawl that is not
alleviated by anything we as an audience have not seen thousands of times
before. Sheridan’s version of Moehringer goes to college, meets a girl, falls
in love, experiences heartbreak, doubt, all that fun stuff. He gets a job but
doesn’t get the job he wanted, finally confronts his father, blah blah blah.
Not helping matters is the fact that Affleck, the best part of the film, is
mostly thrust into the background at this point and that Sheridan shows the
emotional range of a particularly stoic cardboard box.
And
somehow, The Tender Bar just kept going and going. I was
stunned when I learned that the entire film clocked in at only 104 minutes, as
it felt like at least 180. Could this have been improved by tighter editing and
more succinct scriptwriting? Perhaps. But honestly I think the true culprit was
the fact that Moehringer’s story isn’t that unique. Countless protagonists in
literature have daddy issues. Everyone doubts themselves and everyone gets
rejected by people they love and jobs they want. And instead of giving the
audience the “oh, this guy is just like me, how relatable,” feeling The
Tender Bar instead comes off as someone telling a story that they
think is fascinating and unique when it just isn’t. When it comes to being a
piece of entertainment, The Tender Bar doesn’t really justify
its existence, I am sad to say.
The
Tender Bar (ugh… that name…) is now available on Amazon Prime.
This review was first published in The Keizertimes on February 4th, 2022. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/
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