His DJ father (Max Martini) abandoned the family a long time ago, and JR’s only knowledge of him comes from listening to his father’s programme on the radio.
JR’s uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck) becomes a mentor to the young man as he grows up - from university, to first love, to figuring out what he wants to do as a writer.
Finally, I have reached the end of this miniseries.
George Clooney is a great movie star.
He is not a great director. A real revelation, I know.
This movie looks like a movie and sounds like a movie - I have to give Clooney credit for choosing solid collaborators.
But the movie is fundamentally inert.
And despite multiple attempts, Clooney still cannot figure out the tone.
The Tender Bar is meant to be a comedy-drama, but when funny moments happen, they feel jolting - like they are in a different movie: the crash zoom to Dwellings magazine; the cutaway to JR crying in the rain after he lies to his uncle.
It is shocking that an actor whose persona is so built on humour is unable to apply it to his own work.
A deeper issue is that it is almost impossible to figure out what made this project special.
I have not read The Tender Bar. It is a memoir, so I am guessing there is a lot of material that is taken from J. R. Moehringer’s life.
But the problem with this movie is that nothing about it feels original - the first love, a writer looking for a theme that coincides with their search for meaning in their life; the wise mentor who offers advice…
This has all been done before, and with more of a sense of consequences.
JR is shown drinking once or twice, but it does not seem to impede his trajectory. The movie avoids showing a real low point for the character.
You leave the movie wondering what hardship has JR gone through that a thousand kids in coming-of-age movies have not already?
He does not go through anything, and he does not learn anything that was not blindingly obvious.
What is annoying about the movie is how committed it is to delivering such uninspired material, and with no subtlety or sense of subtext.
The end of the movie involves a standoff between JR and his father in which his father literally points out that it looks like JR has had a “breakthrough” and asks him what he is going to do without the “bad guy” in his life.
The acting is good - Affleck in particular - but none of it sticks.
And that is the biggest revelation I have had from George Clooney the director - he is bland.
Aside from Suburbicon, Clooney seems to be incapable of swinging for the fences. He has no wild undercurrents or obsessions that could give his work specificity - or at least contradiction. And despite his interest in world affairs, his work betrays no sense of that broader context, or any solid stances on issues.
While his desire to keep working behind the camera is laudable, George Clooney has yet to find a specific lane as a filmmaker.
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