Movie Trailer & Review : Being Flynn

Takes place when the mid-90s with a rich texture of New York City, and ace performances from Paul Dano and Robert De Niro as they create a father-son relationship is very complicated, Being Flynn is a low-key drama full of pleasant surprises. Complete with the Badly Drawn Boy soundtrack, director Paul Weitz is back in his About A Boy wheelhouse, a relief after a decade marked by middling comedies like American Dreamz and outright disasters like Little Fockers. Handling Nick Flynn's memoir with an understated confidence, Weitz allows for real life's quirks while telling a smoothly paced, engaging story that nicely blends its literary roots with a cinematic style.

Distributor: Focus Features

Release Date:  2012-03-02

Starring: Paul Dano, Robert De Niro, Julianne Moore

Directed by: Paul Weitz

Produced by: Michael Costigan, Andrew Miano, Paul Weitz

Written by: Paul Weitz

The characteristics of the precious moment indicates the tale is supposed to be to Nick, but both dad and son start the movie with voice-over narration, Nick developing himself as your common incomplete mid-20s wanderer, and Jonathan as the type of self-aggrandizing raconteur who presents himself with the range "My name is Jonathan Flynn, and everything I create is a masterwork." it doesn't take lengthy to determine that's not true-- Jonathan gets kicked out from his house and controls to get in touch with his son for once in 18 decades to help him shift out, a bewildering and unfulfilling experience for Nick, who recognizes his own composing ambitions irritatingly demonstrated by his delusional dad. By actual chance, a few several weeks later Nick is operating at a destitute refuge only be rejoined with his dad, who has missing his cab certificate and house and, satisfaction still somehow complete, discovers himself with nowhere else to go.

There are other, much over sentimental version of this story that Being Flynn deftly avoids at every turn. Nick doesn't work at the shelter for altruistic reasons, but because he wants to get with a girl (Olivia Thirlby) who works there, and even while watching his father struggle with alcoholism he succumbs to his own addictions as well. And though Jonathan is homophobic, racist and a consistent problem at the shelter, DeNiro plays him as the kind of irrepressible troublemaker who, in another life, would have no trouble holding his own with Philip Roth or Norman Mailer. With the likes of Lil Taylor and Wes Studi working there, and actual homeless men filling in as extras, the shelter makes for a compelling backdrop as Nick and Jonathan inch toward a relationship, making this more than a story about a father and son reconciliation, but about this entire underseen, forgotten corner of life in a large city.

With the voiceover Narration That occasionally dips should into carefully wrought metaphors, and both Jonathan and Nick's stories that hinge on books and writing, Being Flynn doesn't hide its literary roots, and with Weitz's straightforward directing style it might not seem cinematic enough to merit the adaptation. But it's a pleasure to live inside this world, complicated and rough as it can be, and Dano and DeNiro bring so much to both their individual performances and their relationship together that Nick and Jonathan feel alive on the screen, making their story one worth investing in. It's unspeakably great to see DeNiro actually acting onscreen again, and even Dano seems to find himself a bit here, growing up into a capable man but never letting Nick's neuroses and failings devolve into self-pity. Julianne Moore, seen in flashbacks as Nick's mom, adds her own skill while still leaving the bulk of the film to the boys. Earnest and striving but with a light touch, Being Flynn has an impact far greater than you might expect for a film that feels so easy while you watch it.

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