Ben Affleck shines as a loving uncle in the first trailer for George Clooney’s “The Tender Bar.” The Amazon Studios film is an adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist J.R. Moehringer’s coming-of-age story of the same name.
The 2005 memoir centers on Moehringer (played by Daniel Ranieri as a child and Tye Sheridan as a young adult), who finds a father figure in his bartender uncle and the patrons of his bar, who take him to the beach, to ballgames and ultimately inside their inner circle.
“I’m gonna always tell you the truth. Your father is a deadbeat,” Uncle Charlie says in the trailer about Moehringer’s dad (Max Martini), a New York City disc jockey who deserted him as a baby. “I’ll take care of you, teach you the male sciences. I saw you in the yard playing sports. You’re not very good. Find some other activity.”
“I like to read,” says young J.R., before Charlie opens a door to reveal a closet full of books, jumpstarting his interest in writing, as seen in a shot of the boy sitting at a typewriter.
The trailer then fast-forwards to Moehringer’s freshman year at Yale, him falling in love with a classmate and pursuing a writing career.
Clooney and Affleck last worked together as co-producers on “Argo,” which earned them, and Clooney’s producing partner Grant Heslov, an Academy Award for best picture.
Clooney and Heslov are producing “The Tender Bar” through their Smokehouse Pictures banner, along with Ted Hope. William Monahan, who won an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for “The Departed,” wrote the script for “The Tender Bar.”
The movie hits theaters on Dec. 17 before opening wide on Dec. 22.
Watch the trailer below.