The Tender Bar (2021) * *

Directed by:  George Clooney

Starring:  Ben Affleck, Tye Sheridan, Lily Rabe, Christopher Lloyd, Max Martini, Daniel Ranieri, Max Casella, Briana Middleton

The Tender Bar is as its title suggests:  Gentle, tender, and toothless.   It's based on a memoir by J.R. Moehinger in which the writer recalls his loving, supportive uncle Charlie (Affleck) who runs a Long Island bar and dispenses advice and love.   Charlie isn't a drunk, a bum, or a criminal.   Ben Affleck creates a subtle, nuanced performance which never descends into cliche.   The movie surrounding Uncle Charlie is short on conflict and stakes.   Like last year's Hillbilly Elegy, I found myself questioning why I should care about J.R. and his fledgling writing career?

JR (played by Daniel Ranieri as a youth and Tye Sheridan as an adult) lives with his single mother (Rabe) in her childhood home with her father (Lloyd), mother, and Uncle Charlie circa 1973.   A running joke, in theory, in The Tender Bar is people questioning what JR stands for.   His biological father, known only as The Voice, is a smooth-sounding radio DJ whom JR listens to on the radio and finds this is his most meaningful connection to the old man.   Whenever he meets with The Voice in person, the visits are over quickly and JR finds he'd rather just listen to him on the radio.

Even though his grouchy grandfather longs to have everyone out of the house, he loves his kids and JR and keeps them around.   JR later attends Yale and begins a quasi-relationship with an attractive rich girl named Sidney (Middleton), who uses him for occasional sexual trysts and then cruelly dumps him because she's always "seeing someone else."   JR pines for her and continually enters into the same self-defeating pattern of having sex then being dismissed.   

Other than Sidney and The Voice, JR is surrounded by encouragement and familial love.   The payoffs to his issues with Sidney and The Voice are underwhelming to say the least.   The film ends similarly to Good Will Hunting in which our hero receives a car from the Ben Affleck character and then rides off into the sunset towards his future.   This is where the similarities between The Tender Bar and Good Will Hunting end.  George Clooney is of course an able director, but I'm not seeing anything here which required a director of his talent to helm the project.