Sharper: A cut above

Sharper (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and sensuality

Available via: Movie theaters and (beginning Feb. 17) Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.10.23 

This one has style to burn.

 

Director Benjamin Caron definitely knows his way around atmosphere, and Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka’s deliciously crafty script is as sleek as the elegant outfits that costume designer Melissa Toth has draped onto the primary characters.

 

After a charming first encounter, Tom (Justice Smith) and Sandra (Briana Middleton)
become inseparable. But what's really going on?

I hate saying anything about the plot, because the fun comes from the discovery — as events proceed — that very little is what it seems. This is a grifter saga, very much in the vein of The Sting, American Hustle and The Brothers Bloom (the latter an overlooked early entry from Rian Johnson, who brought us Knives Out; do look for it).

And yet Sharper — great double-entendre title, that — doesn’t feel like a grifter movie … at least not initially.

 

Gatewood and Tanaka’s narrative is divided into distinct acts, the first of which unfolds like a meet-cute love story (and Caron stages it that way).

 

Manhattan Bookstore owner Tom (Justice Smith) can’t help being intrigued by customer Sandra (Briana Middleton), when she browses and then requests a specific title. Their conversation is mildly flirty until it gets awkward, when her credit card is declined. Tom makes a magnanimous gesture; she gets embarrassed, and that might have been that.

 

But she turns out to be honest, which touches him. Several weeks pass, during which they become an item. Middleton’s Sandra sparkles with warmth and kindness; Smith is equally fine as the aw-shucks, somewhat naïve Tom.

 

Then things take … and intriguing turn.

 

We next meet Max (Sebastian Stan). He’s suave, smooth and sophisticated: a thoroughly accomplished con artist. He undertakes a long-term project, with a very specific goal in mind. He’s alternately patient and merciless, rewarding small successes and applying punishment when necessary.

 

Stan is the epitome of cool: often dressed in black, radiating a degree of mystery heightened by a slightly mocking gaze and insincere smile.

 

The narrative cuts to a new chapter. Madeline (Julianne Moore) has become cozy with über-billionaire Richard Hobbes (John Lithgow). Here, at last, Gatewood and Tanaka reveal some of their hole cards; Madeline’s relationship feels artificial. Moore’s bearing is calculated, her smile — when Richard isn’t looking — quite predatory. Whatever else is going on, Madeline’s affection for him isn’t genuine.

The Tender Bar: Wisdom served wry

The Tender Bar (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for considerable profanity and some sexual candor

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.21.22

The best coming-of-age stories possess a carefully calculated blend of warmth and gentle humor, along with the beating heart of such sagas: the relationship between mentor and mentee.

 

J.R. (Daniel Ranieri, left) soon realizes that school books aren't the sole source of
education. Some of life's best lessons come in a bowling alley, particularly when the
wisdom is dispensed by the boy's doting Uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck).

Director George Clooney’s precise touch with The Tender Bar absolutely honors the tone of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist J.R. Moehringer’s best-selling memoir, with its rich cast of quirky characters. At times, this feels like a modern, true-life Charles Dickens story: not a surprise, since books — and particularly Dickens — play an important role.

I only wish William Monahan’s screenplay had done a better job with Moehringer’s book. Condensing a 384-page tome into a 106-minute film obviously requires compromise, but — due to an ill-advised narrative decision — viewers likely will be dissatisfied with the result.

 

The story begins in 1972, as 9-year-old J.R. (Daniel Ranieri) spends hours each day scanning radio channels for “The Voice,” as he calls the deadbeat DJ father who deserted him and his mother Dorothy (Lily Rabe) years earlier. Despite her best efforts, she can’t make ends meet; reluctantly, she packs J.R. and their meager possessions into a car and drives to Manhasset, Long Island, returning to the now-dilapidated house where she grew up.

 

The homecoming isn’t entirely welcoming. Her curmudgeonly and unapologetically blunt father (Christopher Lloyd) views this as a sign of failure; we get a sense that he never forgave Dorothy the mistake of having taken up with her ex-husband. Her mother (Sondra James) is more cordial; her brother Charlie (Ben Affleck), still living with his parents — also to his father’s disgust — is pragmatic and sympathetic.

 

To J.R. — who goes by those initials because he’s actually a junior, which he refuses to acknowledge — Charlie is Uncle Charlie: an attentive, doting purveyor of wisdom and sage advice. J.R. does not want for love; Dorothy is fiercely protective, and a great believer in his potential — she repeatedly insists that he’ll one day go to Yale — but she also battles chronic depression.

 

Laid-back Uncle Charlie takes the edge off. While his approach to “parenting” probably wouldn’t win the approval of Social Services, he’s just what J.R. needs.

 

Affleck’s performance is sublime. Charlie is a self-educated truth-seeker with a closet full of classic books — this fascinates J.R. — and he works as a bartender at a local pub called Dickens, where additional stacks of books vie for space with the colorful liquor bottles. Affleck’s bearing is charismatic; it’s no surprise that the bar regulars hang on his every word, just as J.R. does.

 

Affleck’s line deliveries invariably include a trace of New York sass or snark, stopping just short of smugness. Charlie is never condescending; he grants respect to all who deserve it. (J.R.’s estranged father, who drops in just often enough to disappoint the boy further, is one of the exceptions.)