‘You’re a writer the minute you say you are…’
I love pubs. And I love drinking culture generally. I love the warmth and sense of belonging that radiates from those old drinking dens. The weight of history of so many drunken nights and lightheaded afternoons. I also love Ben Affleck. I want to be his friend. And, in many ways, we are friends. It’s just a secret friendship that Ben isn’t aware of yet. So, a film in which Affleck plays an avuncular dive bar owner was always going to be a home run with me. And so it was…
JR (Tye Sheridan) tries to navigate adolescence against the backdrop of his dad leaving him, an impending application to Yale and a on-off girlfriend (Briana Middleton) who strings him along. Luckily, his uncle Charlie (Affleck) acts a father figure to JR and keeps him on the straight and narrow.
This is a film where everything happens and nothing happens. The tiny fragments of the tapestry of life, those everyday occurrences that shape us, all of them are on display here. Relationships. Education. Friendships. JR works through all of them with the steady hand of uncle Charlie always guiding him home. Sure, much of this stuff seems pretty low stakes and the whole thing is light on plot, but I actually found that quite refreshing. Not all films need to be action packed bonanzas, sometimes a quiet mediation on what it is to be alive is more than enough.
Happily, both Sheridan and Affleck are wonderful here, and they share a great chemistry that is an utter joy to behold. Watching Affleck serving drinks to an assortment of local barflies made me yearn for my own publican days, and I would dearly love to visit this particular fictional bar if such a thing were possible.
The Tender Bar wont be for everyone, and it’s probably not the film that will change people’s minds about George Clooney as a director, but as a man who has spent his whole life listening to Tom Waits sing about drinking, I absolutely loved it. Think Trees Lounge but with less scumbags.