Le bar de la tendresse

Cette adaptation soignée des mémoires du journaliste J.R. Moehringer prend la forme d'un récit initiatique parfois charmant, mais souvent convenu.

Cela dit, The Tender Bar prend vie grâce à Ben Affleck. Dans le rôle de cet oncle charmant, qui prend l'enfant sous son aile et l'initie à la littérature -- le bar qu'il tient a pour nom The Dickens --, l'acteur trouve l'un de ses plus beaux rôles.

Clooney has an eye for lower-key character-driven movies, and it's nice to see him take a step back into stuff like this following his big-budget sci-fi epic, The Midnight Sky. 

Against the worn interiors of the Maguire home and the Dickens, a campus party or the bustle of a newsroom when newsrooms were noisy and full of motion, the production design (by Kalina Ivanov), costumes (Jenny Eagan) and cinematography (Martin Ruhe) always foreground character.

JR Moehringer's real-life story takes center stage to the film's detriment, as the movies rarely if ever make the desire to become a writer into compelling cinema.

Director George Clooney's coming-of-age drama is conventional but Ben Affleck shines on the sidelines.