Two former-Batman actors come together in The Tender Bar.
Directed by George Clooney and based on Pulitzer Prize winning author J.R. Moehringer’s memoir of the same name, the coming-of-age drama stars Ben Affleck as a Long Island bartender who becomes a father figure to his nephew (Tye Sheridan). It’s a smaller, more personal story than we’re used to seeing from Clooney, who tends to make historical dramas, political thrillers, or in the case of last year’s The Midnight Sky, science-fiction films. Outside of Affleck and Sheridan, the cast also includes Lily Rabe and Christopher Lloyd, who never played Batman but he really should have.
Here’s the official plot summary:
The Tender Bar tells the story of J.R., a fatherless boy growing up in the glow of a bar where the bartender, his Uncle Charlie, is the sharpest and most colorful of an assortment of quirky and demonstrative father figures. As the boy’s determined mother struggles to provide her son with opportunities denied to her — and leave the dilapidated home of her outrageous if begrudgingly supportive father — J.R. begins to gamely, if not always gracefully, pursue his romantic and professional dreams — with one foot persistently placed in Uncle Charlie’s bar.
The Tender Bar hits theaters on December 17 and Amazon Prime Video on January 17.