A dark, powerful, and ultimately uplifting drama, Being Flynn is one of those truly great pictures.
Writer/director
Paul Weitz’s last work was
Little Fockers, which would make you think he is a bad filmmaker. This is not true—he wrote
Antz and was both writer and director on the excellent
About a Boy. Sure, there are some “only good; not great” entries on his imdb page (
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant), and some shockingly awful ones (
Nutty Professor II: The Klumps), but he is undoubtedly one of the greatest movie-makers around. He just isn’t a very reliable one.
Being Flynn
is not, as some sources claim, a comedy. It is actually very dark. The
plot centers on Nick Flynn, a depressed young man dealing with his
mother’s suicide by snorting cocaine and working in a homeless shelter
(two activities which don’t usually coincide). Nick’s world is rocked
when his father, Jonathan, shows up needing a room. Jonathan is, like
Nick, a writer; he considers himself as one of the three greatest
America has ever produced (the other two being Mark Twain and JD
Salinger). Unfortunately, he has never had anything published, was
evicted from his house for attacking his neighbor with a cudgel, and
lost his job as a cab driver after drunkenly crashing his vehicle. Nick
looks at Jonathan and sees where he will end up, and he hates him for
it.
One of the best things about the story is that neither man is
softened up to be more likeable. Jonathan remains belligerent and
delusional; his misfortune is definitely of his own doing. Nick’s
hostility towards him is surprisingly cruel, and the son is destroying
his life in just the same way as his father. Nick knows it, too, but he
is powerless to stop it.
The
screenplay is a heavily fictionalized account of a memoir by a real
Nick Flynn, and Nick is the most important character in the story.
Jonathan isn’t a supporting character, though. Much of the movie centers
around his journey, descending the social ladder from low to
rock-bottom; all the time he insists he is a genius and has not done
anything wrong. A particularly heart-rending moment is where Jonathan,
recently evicted, sits in spends the night in a diner drinking coffee
and flirting with the waitress; a homeless man walks in and the staff
gives him free coffee but tells him he has to drink it outside. A few
months later, a haggard Jonathan goes back to the diner and is hurriedly
given a free cup and ushered out.
The supporting cast includes
Steve Cirbus,
Eddie Rous, and the real Nick Flynn’s girlfriend
Lili Taylor as workers in the homeless shelter.
Olivia Thirlby plays Nick’s
manic pixie dream girl;
the movie doesn’t overly romanticize this relationship, instead showing
a life Nick could have gotten if he wasn’t so hell-bent on destroying
himself. Julianne Moore is excellent as always as Nick’s beleaguered
mother.
Nick is played by
There Will Be Blood’s
Paul Dano, who makes the character more genuine and flawed. The great
Robert de Niro
plays Jonathan and the film owes much of its power to his heart-rending
performance. For anyone who says de Niro is no longer an acting legend,
this movie is a testament to how he still carries the weight of making
excellent
screenplays into excellent movies.
In the end, the
viewers get excellent commentary on how people can and should view
their lives; that perhaps life is like an unfinished story to be
completed after we depart from it. This theme only works since the movie
manages to be so genuine and so heartfelt. We truly care about the
characters, but more important than that is how we can relate.
Being Flynn is an incredible, powerful drama and an absolute must-see.
