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.
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| 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). |
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.)
But Charlie also is quick to call B.S. when confronted with it, and Affleck wins our hearts and minds early on, during an encounter with J.R.’s school psychologist. It becomes clear, at that moment, that while Charlie likely never graduated from high school, he is nonetheless quite astute and sharply perceptive.
More to the point, he shares Dorothy’s belief in J.R., and encourages the boy’s desire to become a writer. This display of confidence similarly radiates from the pub’s colorful patrons, who adopt J.R. as something of a mascot. The primary barflies, who serve as a Greek chorus for the evolving drama, are Bobo (Michael Braun), Chief (Max Casella) and Joey D (Matthew Delamater).
They are, to put it mildly, a hoot ’n’ holler.
No surprise, then, that J.R. spends increasing amount of time with this surrogate family. Charlie makes him one of the gang, explaining the “mysteries of manhood” during bowling nights, ball games and trips to the beach with this loyal band of eccentrics.
Ranieri is flat-out adorable, in an extremely impressive acting debut. He and Affleck share considerable chemistry, and it’s easy to forget that they’re playing roles; their bond is that natural. Ranieri ably navigates his character’s range of emotions, from wide-eyed astonishment — when confronted with Charlie’s closet of books — to woebegone dismay, when his drifter father once again fails to honor a promise.
Max Martini’s performance as that absentee parent, it must be noted, is just as effective; he’s the pluperfect slimeball, and we hate him on sight.
At about this point in the story, Clooney and Monahan inject a flash-forward to college-age J.R. (Tye Sheridan), riding a train and striking up a conversation with a companionable priest (Billy Meleady, note-perfect). Following a few more sequences with young J.R., the film’s second half solely follows his college experiences.
It’s more than a little jarring. We’ve just gotten into the rhythm of the environment at Dickens, and the patrons’ growing bond with the boy, and we’re suddenly ripped away from it. The film spends no time with J.R. as a developing teenager, no time during what must’ve been crucial high school years. Even more critically, Dorothy’s serious health scare isn’t fully resolved … although she’s still with us in the second half, so clearly things worked out.
It feels clumsy. It is clumsy.
That said, Sheridan displays an irresistible aw-shucks charm; J.R.’s interactions with a significant college professor (Ezra Knight), and his steady pursuit of a journalism career, certainly are compelling. But far too much time is spent with J.R.’s fruitless infatuation with Sidney (Briana Middleton), a whip-smart young woman who comes from wealth, and seems to enjoy cruelly toying with his emotions.
His first encounter with her parents — Mark Boyett and Quincy Tyler Bernstine, the latter blatantly condescending — is positively cringe-worthy. It feels like Sidney brought J.R. home solely to annoy them somehow. She clearly isn’t worthy of him, but — since he’s besotted — we have to endure this “relationship” until he eventually realizes that, recalling one of Uncle Charlie’s sage observations, some people simply aren’t what we want them to be.
This uncomfortable dynamic displays very little of the first act’s richly poignant moments. One standout — likely a scene for which this film will be remembered — ironically involves not Affleck and young Ranieri, but Lloyd and James. Grandpa has just “stepped up” unexpectedly; his wife — usually at the fringes of a scene, up to this point — comes close, looks up at him, and softly says three words.
Like, wow.
There’s much to admire here, including the carefully selected roster of 1970s and ’80s pop hits that provide a soundtrack to J.R.’s life: everything from “Radar Love” and “Shotgun” to “Do It Again” and “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues.” (Indeed, the three dozen-plus tunes would make a terrific mix tape.)
The clumsy narrative flow, however, is a distracting flaw; it feels like we’re missing a lengthy middle chapter. This likely will prompt a lot of viewers to seek out Moehringer’s book: a result which, I’m sure, would meet with Uncle Charlie’s approval.
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