Taking a page out of Ron Howard’s book, George Clooney decided to turn memoir about a poor white nobody who grew up to conquer Yale into a major motion picture. The Tender Bar is better than Hillbilly Elegy. But what isn’t? That particular Tender Bar is set very, very low.
Say have you ever heard this one? “A termite walks into a pub and asks, ‘Where is the bar tender?’ “ That is, unfortunately, the greatest association I have with this film … a title worthy of a punchline.
The Tender Bar is told in two halves – the first about pre-pubescent JR (Daniel Ranieri) in the 1970s retreating with his mother to move into the home of gramps (Christopher Lloyd) in Long Island. The second deals with college-aged JR (Tye Sheridan) in the 1980s finding a solid place in Yale and a not-so-solid place in his girlfriend’s bedroom.
In both halves, mom (Lily Rabe) doesn’t change. Like, at all. Oh, the star, Ben Affleck, gets the younger/older treatment … and the protagonist changes into a completely different person (Daniel Ranieri neither looks nor acts a thing like Tye Sheridan), but mom doesn’t change, which is … odd.
So the deal here is that JR’s biological father is a piece of crap. “SR” is a deadbeat disc jockey. I wish he hadn’t appeared in the film at all, but he shows up twice. As JR is without that particular support, Uncle Charlie – which is slang for “curve ball” – (Affleck) takes over as father, priest, bartender, confidant, and spiritual guide for all manly needs the kid has. We never really get why Uncle Charlie owns the bar “Dickens” and yet remains single and living in his father’s house. I bet the book gave more insight into both the Ben Affleck and Christopher Lloyd characters. Bottom line is if you never liked Affleck before, you might like him here.
For now, we accept that Uncle Charlie works a bar though he frowns on alcoholism, owns a ton of books that he doesn’t read, and looks like Ben Affleck without anything even remotely sexual entering his world. And if we 
accept all of this without question, Uncle Charlie is the best guy a kid like JR could ever have. Their relationship makes this film work.
For my tastes, the younger JR has more appeal than the collegiate version. I feel like the Tye Sheridan edition of JR has a learning block of some kind. Dude, let’s set an achievable goal or two, then proceed. Perhaps this is the charm of JR – the young man has hasn’t got it all together, but he’s trying. Most of us will see at least a little of ourselves in JR.
The obvious comparison for The Tender Bar is Hillbilly Elegy. Both films are about dirt poor white kids who grow up to write memoirs about success at Yale. The tone of each film, however, is much different. The Tender Bar strikes an honest chord of “Lord-if-I-know.” JR is smart, but rarely has an answer for an adult problem. Hillbilly Elegy strikes me anew as an excuse to justify how JD Vance turned out to be such a piece of shit. Practically every shot on the Howard film defends a tone of “you see what I was up against, right? Wouldn’t a guy like that naturally grow up to defend Nazis and blanket everyone left-of-center as a degenerate?”
It is not right, but this is the comparison George Clooney and JR Moehringer have invited. And while they pass that bar, nothing gets juxtaposed with Hillbilly Elegy and comes away smelling clean. The Tender Bar is watchable, but held little magic for me.
There once was a kid named JR
Who wrote a meandering memoir
It’s gonna sound loony
But it was picked up by Clooney
And now it struggles to get a third star
Rated R, 106 Minutes
Director: George Clooney
Writer: William Monahan
Genre: Powhitetrash, Yankee-style
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Northeasterners alive in the 70s and 80s
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who are reminded too much of Hillbilly Elegy
