George Clooney’s acting credits have slightly dwindled over the past five years, but he’s still very much a Hollywood impact player on top of now, also being a husband and family man. He’s directed two films, 2017’s “Suburbicon” and last year’s “Midnight Sky,” where he also starred. He also had a small role in the 2019 Hulu miniseries “Catch-22,” where he directed a handful of episodes and served as executive producer.
Now, Clooney directs “The Tender Bar,” an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir by J.R. Moehringer. The film stars Tye Sheridan as a young man with a demanding family life who comes of age under the sway of his Uncle Charlie and his bar.
Here’s the film’s official synopsis:
The Tender Bar tells the story of J.R., a fatherless boy growing up in the glow of a bar where the bartender, his Uncle Charlie, is the sharpest and most colorful of an assortment of quirky and demonstrative father figures. As the boy’s determined mother struggles to provide her son with opportunities denied to her — and leave the dilapidated home of her outrageous if begrudgingly supportive father — 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.
Ben Affleck stars alongside Sheridan as Uncle Charlie, Lily Rabe as Sheridan’s mother, and Christopher Lloyd as his grandfather. The film also stars Sondra James, Max Martini, Michael Braun, Matthew Delamater, and Max Casella.
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Clooney directs a script by William Monahan. It’s Monahan’s first directed screenplay since the 2015 pretentious crime thriller “Mojave,” which he also directed. Cinematographer Michael Ruhe, who worked with Clooney on “Catch-22” and “Midnight Sky,” returns as director of photography. He first worked with Clooney on the 2010 Anton Corbijn film “The American.”
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Amazon Studios will release “The Tender Bar” in select L.A. & N.Y. Theaters December 17th, 2021, then expand in theaters nationwide December 22nd, 2021, the hit globally on Amazon Prime Video January 7th, 2022. Watch the new trailer below.