The Tender Bar

By Ulkar Alakbarova on June 23, 2024

JR is a fatherless boy growing up in the glow of a bar where the bartender, his Uncle Charlie, is the sharpest and most colorful of an assortment of quirky and demonstrative father figures. As the boy's determined mother struggles to provide her son with opportunities denied to her — and leave the dilapidated home of her outrageous if begrudgingly supportive father — JR begins to gamely, if not always gracefully, pursue his romantic and professional dreams, with one foot persistently placed in Uncle Charlie's bar.

Credits: TheMovieDb.

Film Cast:

Charlie Maguire: Ben Affleck
JR Maguire: Tye Sheridan
Young JR Maguire: Daniel Ranieri
Dorothy Maguire: Lily Rabe
Grandpa Maguire: Christopher Lloyd
The Voice, JR's father: Max Martini
Wesley: Rhenzy Feliz
Sidney: Briana Middleton
Chief: Max Casella
Grandma Maguire: Sondra James
Bobo: Michael Braun
Joey D: Matthew Delamater
Jimmy: Ivan Leung
Aunt Ruth: Danielle Ranieri
Kathy: Kate Avallone
Sidney's Dad: Mark Boyett
Sidney's Mom: Quincy Tyler Bernstine
Professor Van Dyke: Ezra Knight
School Psychologist: David Carl
Pat: Shannon Collis
Kathy's Daughter: Keira Jo Lassor
Mrs. Williams: Jennifer C. Johnson
NYT Editor: Michael Steven Costello
NYT Personnel Woman: Kate Middleton
NYT Copyboy: Jackson Damon
NYT Copygirl: Caroline Bergwall
Officer James: Daniel Washington
Chief's Wife: Jenny Eagan
Other Customer: Steve Gagliastro
Aunt Ruth's Kid #1: Annabella Valle
Aunt Ruth's Kid #2: Clara Kelly
Aunt Ruth's Kid #3: Meara Mahoney Gross
Future JR Maguire (voice only): Ron Livingston
Kid in Classroom (uncredited): Jack Baumrind
Dickens Bar Regular (uncredited): Julia Bechler
Yale Student (uncredited): Keith R Beck
Dickens Bar Patron (uncredited): Alissa Bourne

Film Crew:

Producer: George Clooney
Producer: Grant Heslov
Producer: Ted Hope
Original Music Composer: Dara Taylor
Music Supervisor: Linda Cohen
Screenplay: William Monahan
Book: J.R. Moehringer
Editor: Tanya Swerling
Director of Photography: Martin Ruhe
Production Design: Kalina Ivanov
Art Direction: Bryan Felty
Set Decoration: Melissa M. Levander
Makeup Department Head: Trish Seeney
Visual Effects Supervisor: Matt Kasmir
Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Todd Beckett
Supervising Sound Editor: Nancy Nugent
Supervising Sound Editor: Julian Slater
Sound Designer: Jon Title
Costume Supervisor: Dana Pacheco
Executive Producer: Barbara A. Hall
Costume Design: Jenny Eagan
Casting: Rachel Tenner

Movie Reviews:

r96sk: So very plain.
To be honest: I found 'The Tender Bar' to be a bore. I felt like I had seen this film before, such is the predictable and monotonous nature of the story. It almost felt like a (poorer) rerun of 2020's 'Hillbilly Elegy'.
I will say, though, that Ben Affleck gives a very good performance in this, to the point that I actually would've liked to have seen a story revolving around him and his character - as opposed to who this 2021 flick is about. Aside from Affleck, I didn't care for any of the other performances and therefore any of the other characters.
It's not even a bad film, it's just so, so boring - for me, anyway.
CinemaSerf: It's not often I find myself writing this, but Ben Affleck is comfortably the best thing about this otherwise rather lacklustre adaptation of JR Moehringer's autobiographical coming of age tale. It depicts the story of his childhood - through the eyes of the engaging young Daniel Ranieri - before he heads to Yale in the guise of Tye Sheridan. The first half hour, maybe, is quite entertaining. This young lad living with his mother (his selfish father is estranged from them, living the mobile life of a late night radio talk show host) in the home of his mildly eccentric grandfather (Christopher Lloyd) and their home is a lively, buzzing environment in which the youngster thrives. Chief amongst the residents is his charismatic, worldly-wise uncle "Charlie" (Affleck) who runs a local bar populated with a decent, working-class clientele who take to the young man and encourage his obvious academic talents. That half hour peters out, though, and the rest of the film is really a rather uninspiring story of a young man, his "first love", a youth who is looking for some sort of positive male "role model". I find Sheridan a rather sterile actor. Sure, he is pretty, but he doesn't ever stand out with his performances. They are all just a little bit by the numbers, and here is no different. He speak words of passion, but his acting conveys none of that adequately on screen. The soundtrack is left to do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to dialogue, and it feels longer than the 1¾ hours it takes to watch. I am glad I watched it - on a big screen in London with just one other person - but I don't think I would ever bother watching it again.
tmdb28039023: This film, written by William Monahan and directed by George Clooney on autopilot is yet another shallow glimpse into the formative years of an wannabe writer. This is hardly virgin territory, having already been thoroughly covered by the likes of Unstrung Heroes, Almost Famous, and Neil Simon's 'Eugene Trilogy', to mention but a few examples.
J.R. Maguire (Daniel Ranieri, Tye Sheridan), based on American novelist and journalist J. R. Moehringer, grows up in an eccentric family straight from Central Casting — we have the long-suffering single mother, the deadbeat dad, the curmudgeonly grandfather with a secret heart of gold, and the cool uncle who doubles as a father figure. The only thing, and it's nothing to sneeze at, that The Tender Bar has going for it is that the grandfather and uncle are played by Christopher Lloyd Ben Affleck.
"When you're 11, you want an Uncle Charlie," says J.R. I can't disagree, especially considering that Uncle Charlie owns The Dickens Bar, its shelves filled with booze and books. Now, this and no other is the movie they should have made: one wherein Ben Affleck is a self-taught philosopher barman who doles out drinks and folk wisdom in equal parts, and Christopher Lloyd is his best customer.
Unfortunately what we have here is such hackneyed material that Affleck's and Lloyd's combined efforts can hardly raise it above the commonplace (how's this for a cliché: to illustrate the fickleness of J.R.'S stereotypically unattainable romantic interest, the soundtrack breaks into into Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"), whence it crumbles back whenever they're off-screen.
It doesn't help either that the potential shown by Sheridan in Mud and Joe apparently didn't survive the actor's puberty. In these two films Sheridan could boast of going toe-to-toe with Matthew McConaughey and Nic Cage; here Affleck acts circles around him.
Worst of all, we hear from a number of people how good a writer J.R. is, but we're never given any concrete reason for that — only platitudes, such as invoking some ineffable je ne sais quoi or just unilaterally deciding that "You are a writer the moment you say you are." What he fails to realize is that talking business and meaning business are two very different things.