The Tender Bar
“The Tender Bar”
The Tender Bar is a film directed by George Clooney and staring Ben Affleck who plays Uncle Charlie. Uncle Charlie is the father figure for young JR, his nephew who has come to live with his mother at his grandfathers home in Long Island in the 1970’s. Young JR is learning to navigate through life seeking father figures in his Uncle Charlie and his friends that all hangout at the bar he runs The Dickins. Young JR is enamored with his uncle Charlie and finds a love of books through him. Though he seems like a shifty underachiever in every way there is definitely more to uncle Charlie and his friends than meets the eye.
JR is played in his college age years by Tye Sheridan who does a great job of playing the awkward years of a persons life where they are trying desperately to find themselves. JR unlike most people his age he has the advantage of knowing exactly what he wants to be, but still getting there has its own obstacles. Along the way like most people his age he finds love, but unlike most happy movie love stories this one is all to real in its showing us all how cruel love can be for just one side of the equation when love is only felt from one side. As we follow JR on his journey to do what it takes to show the girl that he loves that he is worthy of that love being returned he strays further and further from what he truly wants to do and who he wants to be.
When JR finally comes to terms with the fact that his dead beat is not the good guy that he had always hoped he would turn out to be and that sometimes it isnt the presence of a parent that makes their life better but more the absence of that parent in ones life that made it better. In the end JR learns that when you let go of things that will never be, and start to focus on the things that you need to be in order to be happy that peace will follow. Whether that thing that you let go of be love not returned in the form of a parent or the object of ones affection, until you are ready to realize that you are good enough with or without them peace is hard to find. The Tinder Bar is based on the memoirs of author J.R. Moehringer and his life growing up in 70’s Long Island and is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. It can currently be streamed on Amazon Prime. 4 out of 5 Yellow Suckers
*This movie review was originally published in The Current River Observer as the River Reels article written by Jeffrey Riggs
