The Tender Bar is a series of disconnected vignettes, first involving young JR, and then college-and-a-few-years-after JR. There's little continuity and an unexpected (and odd) jump between the two ages. In so many ways, this plays like the real JR wanting to tell you ten scenes from his life, with little regard for whether this would make an interesting, or even watchable, movie. It left me wondering who paired the book down to the movie.
And that's before we get to all the mediocre production choices - Long Islanders bowling candlepins, which don't exist in Long Island, young JR and older JR don't look much like each other, JR cursing out his father without so much as attending to the person who inspired the cursing, sound editing that loses the end of the sentence every five minutes or so, and the random scene choices and ending that seems no better place to stop than many other moments in JR's life.
There are lots of movies that disappoint me, but I nonetheless think were worth watching. The Tender Bar is just a waste of time. Ben Affleck doing a decent job in a supporting role, and a cute kid reminiscent of The Wonder Years, do not make a good movie.
And that's before we get to all the mediocre production choices - Long Islanders bowling candlepins, which don't exist in Long Island, young JR and older JR don't look much like each other, JR cursing out his father without so much as attending to the person who inspired the cursing, sound editing that loses the end of the sentence every five minutes or so, and the random scene choices and ending that seems no better place to stop than many other moments in JR's life.
There are lots of movies that disappoint me, but I nonetheless think were worth watching. The Tender Bar is just a waste of time. Ben Affleck doing a decent job in a supporting role, and a cute kid reminiscent of The Wonder Years, do not make a good movie.