Director: Paul Weitz
Rating: ***1/2
A strong, emotional movie on the father-son relationship is ‘Being Flynn’ starring Robert De Niro and Paul Dano, based on the book “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir”. With power packed performance by De Niro, after not having a single hit or noteworthy performance in the recent past, BF is a film with a warm message – we may not get to choose our parents but we definitely get the opportunity to treat them well and learn a thing or two as life goes on.
According to Jonathan Flynn, he’s one among America’s best writers after Mark Twain and J.D Salinger. Paul Weitz
‘Being Flynn’ opens with the above quoted line mouthed by Jon Flynn, as he walks down the road with a smirk on his face and enters a car wash and exits in his cab. In short, he’s a cab driver with over-the-head aspirations which may never come true. Jon Flynn speaks mighty of himself but his actions are completely opposite to his words.
Nick Flynn grew up reading his dad’s letters, written from prison, in which he constantly spoke greatly of his writing skills, claiming everything written by him is/will be a masterpiece. Inspired from the letters, Nick too picks up writing however his mother is against the idea. She wishes Nick can become anything except writer as she fears he’ll end up too like his father.
Years later, Nick still hasn’t figured out what to do with his life when hope comes knocking on the door in the form of Denise – a close friend of Nick’s roomies’ who offers him a job offer. Nick manages to get a job at Harbor Street – a homeless shelter. Meanwhile, out of the blue moon Nick gets a call from his long-absent father, requesting him to offer pick-up services as he’s being evicted. Nick helps hoping to never see his father again but days or may be two weeks tops later he runs in to him at the homeless shelter. How Nick copes with the condition of his father and will he come forward to offer his support forms the rest of the story.
Inspired by a true story, this film is far from being called adapted because what you get to see in the film is bona fide in
its presentation. De Niro slips in to the shoes of senior Flynn with ease and sophistication, and his work is surreal but very fitting. Julianne’s performance is outstanding and her character is the most difficult in the film, which she pulls off brilliantly. Her transformation is noteworthy – from eagerly waiting with hope for her husband in a scene to advising her son what a loser his father is.
Although most of the film is depressing, there seem to have been a forced happy ending shoved just for the sake of enlightening the audience, which according to me was lame. Paul worked on this memoir for almost seven years before finally making it in to a feature film and the output speaks for itself. Paul is a master of making intelligent, poignant films that wreck you from the inside and leave you in a state of total despair. ‘About a Boy’ is one of the examples of such films.
Paul leaves a sense of uncertainty attached to his characters – For senior Flynn it is to take control of his descending life while junior Flynn fears that he may also grow in to his father and become as useless as him. Mrs. Flynn’s doubt is that her son may not be happy with how things are going between them. The audiences are also left with some kind of uncertainty – will the father-son unite or not?
Don’t miss ‘Being Flynn’ for Robert De Niro!
