Tender Bar, The - A Review of the 2021 Film by George Clooney starring Ben Affleck, Tye Sheridan, Christopher Lloyd, Max Casella, Daniel Ranieri, Lily Rabe and more

The Tender Bar 

A Film by George Clooney (2021)

5 Stars *****

"...You Go Back Jack..."

 

George Clooney is beloved (let's face it) and could make most ladies on the planet still go weak at the knees. And I think he's a world-class actor too when given the material ("The Ides Of March", "Michael Clayton", "Up In The Air" and even the underrated WWII movie "The Monuments Men"). But when he directs, I've found he's made some serious dogs - "Suburbicon" was nasty and brutish and that last one "The Midnight Sky" about people in space where he's the last man at some radio station in the snow was just kind of pointless and irritating no matter how good it looked. But "The Tender Trap" from 2021 is a directorial winner. In fact, I loved it.

 

I'm not quite sure where some people get off saying it was awful etc - that's simply not true. The ensemble cast of various 1970s Long Island bar-hounds is great (Max Casella especially), an ancient but very touching Granpa Maguire is played by the hugely likeable Christopher Lloyd of "Back To The Future" fame (check him out in Bob Odenkirk's cleverly in-yer-face "Nobody"), newcomer Daniel Ranieri is mesmerizing as the young 8-year-old kid, whilst the older Junior is an always topnotch Tye Sheridan – suitably lost and pining for a Dad on the radio he only occasionally sees when sober but still hears as some kind of magical being (a broodingly brilliant Max Martini).

 

A perfectly chosen soundtrack is a thing of beauty in its own right for a period film like this – New Jersey shuffles woven into the narrative rather than sticking out like a sore thumb – and that's what you get with "The Tender Bar". But it's the writing that I loved the most - the portrayal of reality - the sheer good luck it represents to have good family and friends vs. the cruelty of life and its maddening lack of opportunities for those without money or the will to fight.

 

Lily Rabe is fantastic as Junior's husband-abandoned illness-racked Mum Dorothy, determined to get her dreamer word-boy into Yale University (as God is my witness) so that he gets the chances in life she never did. And at the core of "The Tender Bar" is someone who cares. There's a flow between the Ben Affleck Uncle Charlie Maguire character and the young dreamer boy Junior that makes the film hum. Throw in cool voiced narration by Ron Livingstone and it feels classy.

 

The sepia look to give it that 70ts period feel was maybe a little too overused, but this film felt good to me and the better half, right from the get go and kept that momentum throughout. "The Tender Bar" is a bit of a wee gem and any film that ends with the full-length five-plus minute version of Steely Dan's stunning "Do It Again" (which is astonishingly 50 years old this September 2022 and still sounds fresh) is a winner in my book...