Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticThey say it takes a village to raise a child, but in Pulitzer-winning journalist J.R. Moehringer’s case, a Long Island pub will do.
A broadly appealing, only slightly sentimental personal history adapted from Moehringer’s memoir by director George Clooney and “The Departed” screenwriter Bill Monahan, “The Tender Bar” acknowledges how, growing up without a father, the young J.R.
found the next best thing, if not better, in his blue-collar uncle Charlie (a terrific Ben Affleck, who, between this and “The Way Back,” could well be entering a new chapter in his career).It was Charlie — bartender at a spot called The Dickens, where rows of thick hardback books lined the shelves behind the bar — who encouraged.
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