The Tender Bar Trailer: Ben Affleck Tends Bar In Long Island For Director George Clooney

Amazon Studios has released the official trailer and one-sheet poster for the coming-of-age drama film "The Tender Bar" from director George Clooney ("The Midnight Sky," "Good Night, and Good Luck"). While this marks the first time that Clooney has directed his fellow Batman thespian Ben Affleck, the two of them won Oscars together for producing Affleck's 2012 film "Argo." The film recently premiered at the London Film Festival where it so far has garnered mixed reviews.

Besides Affleck, the cast includes Tye Sheridan ("Ready Player One"), Emmy Award winner Christopher Lloyd ("Nobody"), Lily Rabe ("American Horror Story"), Max Martini ("Pacific Rim"), and introduces child actor Daniel Ranieri as the younger version of Sheridan's character whose Long Island upbringing with an absentee father is chronicled in the movie. The film is based on the 2005 memoir of the same name by Pulitzer Prize-winning author/journalist J.R. Moehringer, whose articles were previously the basis for Rod Lurie's 2007 film "Resurrecting the Champ."

If you have a memory that goes back far enough, the first thing you might notice about the trailer for "The Tender Bar" is it is essentially trying to ape the 20-year-old trailer for Wes Anderson's dysfunctional family classic "The Royal Tenenbaums," right down to the use of Paul Simon's "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard." This doesn't quite sell, though, since Clooney is a much more straight-ahead traditional dramatic filmmaker than Anderson, and as the trailer goes on, the quirkier character moments make way for genuine drama once the teenage Moehringer (Sheridan) heads to Yale. 

"The Tender Bar" is produced by Clooney alongside his longtime producing partner Grant Heslov ("Catch-22," "Money Monster") as well as former Amazon head Ted Hope ("Super," "American Splendor"). Moehringer serves as executive producer, while "The Departed" Academy Award-winner William Monahan (who knows his way around writing onscreen bars) penned the script. 

Here is the official synopsis:

"The Tender Bar tells the story of J.R. (Sheridan), a fatherless boy growing up in the glow of a bar where the bartender, his Uncle Charlie (Affleck), is the sharpest and most colorful of an assortment of quirky and demonstrative father figures. As the boy's determined mother (Rabe) struggles to provide her son with opportunities denied to her — and leave the dilapidated home of her outrageous if begrudgingly supportive father (Christopher Lloyd) — 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 is based on the best-selling memoir of the same name by J.R. Moehringer."

"The Tender Bar" is set to be released in a limited release on December 17, 2021, followed by an Amazon Prime Video streaming debut on January 7, 2022. See the poster for "The Tender Bar" below.

Amazon Studios