Being Flynn (2012)

Touches You

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Being a compulsive completist of Ms. Moore (or basically any other prolific thespians), one is destined to face some meh-worthy titles in her immense body of work, BEING FLYNN unfortunately fits that category.Directed and written by Paul Weitz, the story is based on the true story of Nick Flynn (Dano), a young wannabe-writer works temporarily in a Boston shelter for homeless people, who is contracted by his father Jonathan Flynn (De Niro), for the first time after 18 years and later, Nick comes across him again in the shelter, Jonathan, a taxi driver and self-boasting poet and writer (in fact, he humbles himself to be just one of the three greatest American writers ever, guess who are the other two?), vexingly brags that he is float on the fringe of being discovered for his yet-to-be- finished novel, experiences a downward spiral in his recent life and is plunged into the abyss of vagrancy.A platitudinous plot of father-son's from-bitter-to-sweet reconciliation will duly pans out after their unplanned reunion, but before that, Weitz promisingly juggles with two paralleled narrations from Jonathan and Nick separately with considerable verve. Both contend to be the more proficient raconteur, Jonathan is the apposite re-imagination of what will happens to Travis Bickle after TAXI DRIVER (1976), still a cabby in his twilight year, ever so discontented, prejudiced and delusional. And Nick, seems to be stuck in a limbo reckoning with his future and relationships, who attempts a casual relationship with his co-worker Denise (Thirlby, whom by the way, seems utterly uninterested in their romance) after cheating from his air-hostess girlfriend (a cameo from Waterston), and is unable to pull himself together from his fond memories of his late mother Jody (Moore, underused in her single-mother cliché with subtle frustration and taedium vitae gnawing underneath her calm facade, it is a sheer crime that she doesn't share any scenes with De Niro! What are you thinking, Mr. Weitz?) and an oscillating resolution to shut Jonathan completely out of his life.As thrilling as to see De Niro return as a cabby with the unabated fervour (one of his most committed work in ages) and he even delivers another bombast in front of a mirror as a patent homage, woefully one finds his Jonathan comes off as overbearing, insufferable and nuances are extremely wanting, a radical, sexist, homophobic, racist, family-deserter, coward, egoist, it is a clumsy tactic to make him that abhorrent and hope empathy will smoothly ensue later. Granted, it seems courageous for Flynn to insist on an unadorned depiction of his's own father (since this kind of character does exist, everywhere), it is ups to Weitz that a certain dramatic license is required to smooth Jonathan's edges, not at the least because eventually, it is all about a heartwarming and hard-earned second chance of a long-lost family bond, in lieu of a justified broadside against an irresponsible father and an incorrigible daydreamer.Dano looks quite self-conscious in scenes shared with De Niro, but excels in rendering Nick's dithering frame-of-mind towards his personal dilemma. The depiction of the working conditions in a shelter dealing with hobos is both minutely re-enacted and consciously sanitised, dark corners are left undisclosed, lest it will avert many a fastidious viewer, that can be regarded as an encapsulation of the film as a whole, a character study could go digging into something more contentious and darker (for example, what is Jonathan's attitude about his abandonment? He never betrays anything even remotely contrite in front of his son), that's why the end result is neither consistently exciting nor awfully mawkish, nondescript seems to be the right word I'm searching for here.

Here we have over 100 minutes of the same topic being told over and over! What was Director Paul Weitz thinking?We see over and over Nick Flynn's relationship with his over stressed mother and psychotic bum father. Dano is sadly one dimensional and predictable - even with all the evidence before him of how he will end up if he doesn't change his ways. De Niro is a wise old sage in one scene then a screaming maniac in another, then a boozed up drunk in another scene and all the while he says the same thing over and over to Nick (his son).We - the viewers - know how this story will end. Believe me, it's no surprise! The ending of the movie might as well have been the beginning! I was bored watching and now I'm bored writing about this movie.

Nick (Paul Dano) works in a homeless shelter and sees Jonathan Flynn (Robert DeNiro), his father there. He hasn't seen his father for 18 years. Based upon a true story.This is the type of story whereby the main character, Nick, had a disturbing childhood and decided to write about it and now we have the movie. Both Nick and Jonathan have the writing bug.We see Nick go through many of these disturbing events: was told his father was in prison and upon release abandoned the family, the many boyfriends of the mother (Julianne Moore), the death of his hard working mother, seeing his father in the homeless shelter, drinking and getting into drugs, the hard stuff. The acting performances all around are very good. Nick's father is con man without game, and thinks extremely highly of himself. It would have been too easy to feel sympathy for the father if he didn't tout himself as a writing genius (without portfolio) at every turn. But, keep in mind, his situation and deep down you feel Jonathan knows his condition, but outwardly refuses to succumb to it and claims he is a survivor.Sometimes this is hard to watch because we don't like seeing people in the homeless shelter in these circumstances, but if we look outside our comfortable world, we will see real tragedy, people with no hope and who are just trying to make it one more day. I would have thought that Nick would have been more caring, but he endures the father from a distance, something not lost on the father. His big fear is that he will become his father. However, maybe this was the way it really was. With these true stories we are really never sure how it was back then. I am so glad that Robert DeNiro has abandoned the so-called "comedies" he had been associated with as I never found him convincing or funny in them. In here, Mr. DeNiro is on his game and if you look into his character's eyes you will see the bottom. Yes, there may be an Oscar for him, but since the movie has not gotten wide appeal, this may be lost as his was truly a class A performance, and deserving of an Oscar.The ending is okay, kind of bland but tells us hope is alive. (7/10)Violence: Yes. Sex: Yes. Nudity: Yes, male backsides. Language: A lot in the beginning, then it left us (includes f-bombs)

Saw this one on DVD from my public library. De Niro and Dano pair well in this father/son story, dirty and gripping at times, alternately sad and funny, it pays off if you watch it all the way through.Robert De Niro is Jonathan Flynn, by his own account one of only three great American authors. Problem is his book has not been published, he is estranged from his grown son for 18 years, and he drives a taxi in New York. He has a running conflict with his downstairs neighbors who play their live music too loud. After an incident where he starts an altercation he is evicted. Paul Dano is his son, Nick Flynn. His mother is dead, he knows that he is his father's son, he has been influenced by his father to become a writer, but when he meets up with dad again fears that he is following too closely in dad's footsteps, becoming a delusional failure and a drunk.Their chance to meet again comes a few weeks after Nick takes a job at a NYC homeless shelter. After Jonathan becomes homeless, lives in his cab for a while, then wrecks it, has to go to the shelter to get out of the winter weather. Jonathan and Nick have an uneasy time of it, but this eventually helps both of them see a way out of their respective plights.Julianne Moore is Jody Flynn , Nick's deceased mother.SPOILERS: Jody had killed herself after reading an unfinished story her son wrote, and he had carried that blame. At one point his dad assures him that no one can cause another to kill themselves. After several tense encounters Jonathan finally gets his own apartment again, seems to be coping well, Nick goes back to college gets his degree and teaches, and writes an award-winning book of poetry.