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80And then there's the simple fact of De Niro, playing a delusional taxi driver. It's easy to imagine Being Flynn's story turning precious in the wrong hands, but Weitz and his cast spin it just right - as a narrative that is both emotionally real, and just writerly enough to suit its leading men.
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80Robert De Niro and writer-director Paul Weitz find the most congenial material either of them has had in quite some time in Being Flynn.
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Feb 27, 201280The film surrounds its leads with a cast whose faces capture the ragtag dignity Flynn described in his book -- no overacting required, no emotional panhandling allowed.
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75It's an involving journey, remarkably free of sentimentality, deepened by the performances.
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75He might be guilty of showboating, but De Niro's knockout performance is a declaration that the star of "Raging Bull" isn't ready to hang up his gloves.
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75What's admirable about Being Flynn is that it doesn't cave in to the standard Hollywood redemption formulas, with the father redeemed and the son inspired. It's more complicated than that.
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75Dano is still doing his ethereal, creepy underacting routine, but, compared with De Niro's scenery chewing, he seems almost dignified. The film, written and directed by Paul Weitz, has many touching moments and many more hokey ones.
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75Weitz's sense of play and the Badly Drawn Boy soundtrack each give Being Flynn an enjoyable lightness; meanwhile, the curdled, hidden rage lurking within both Flynns gives it an equally enjoyable edge.
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70The story is gripping, compelling. One wonders what De Niro might have done with such a role 30, 35 years ago. De Niro -- whatever happened to him?
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63In this tale of two lives, Being Flynn gets the emphasis wrong. The success that has many fathers is altogether predictable; it's the despicable orphan of failure who has us in his thrall.
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63Here, you can feel De Niro's full engagement in a character that echoes his roles in "Taxi Driver" and "Awakenings." It's a great wreck of a performance that feels bruisingly true. At its best, when it keeps sentimentality at bay, so does Being Flynn.
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60There's no doubt that Being Flynn is an attempt at something painful and genuine – the movie itself yearns to make a connection, even if it can't quite locate the most effective channels.
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50On the whole, the film feels detached and morose, just like its characters.
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50Mostly, though, Being Flynn is memorable for the sight of a once-great actor rousing himself to a performance the movie itself isn't prepared to handle.
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50Paul Weitz has dialed things down considerably for Being Flynn, writing and directing with an earnest sensitivity that at times suits, at times undermines, the complexities of the story at hand.
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50Robert De Niro has made several unwise choices in roles recently, and his belligerent wannabe writer in Being Flynn definitely adds to that list.
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50There is honest feeling, genuine humanity and real intelligence in this movie, but there is also a sense of caution, of indecisiveness, that undermines its potential power. Being Flynn is an honorably ambivalent film, finally unsure of what to do with the two strong, complicated characters at its center.
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50The movie's emotional content was manifest as an absence. What stayed with me most memorably was the father's insufferable bombast and the son's sad passivity.
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50It's no wonder the movie is no walk in the park, even with a pretty soundtrack by Badly Drawn Boy (again, like About a Boy). It never feels inspirational - it's too gritty and dark - and there isn't a single easy solution in sight for either Nick or Jonathan.
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50Is it possible for an actor to go through the motions even as he's going over the top? In Being Flynn, Robert De Niro does phoned-in scenery chewing.
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50Too small and dark to appeal to a large audience, it's not a movie to cherish.
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Feb 28, 201250What the actors are unable to get across emotionally (which is a lot - Dano and De Niro, both of them all big actorly tics, often seem like they were filmed in different rooms), Weitz hammers home via near-constant music.
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40Weitz – who did a great job adapting Nick Hornby's "About a Boy" into an affecting 2002 movie – can't bring the pieces together here.
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40Sadly, most of the film's dull edges have to do with De Niro, who is clearly in rest-on-his-laurels mode; at his worst, he approaches radioactive, Robin Williams levels of bathos, as when Jonathan - roaring like a bush-league Lear - is banned from the shelter for bad behavior.
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38The real coup de grace for this would-be serious-minded drama is the sledgehammer-subtle direction of Paul Weitz (who is also the screenwriter), who enabled his star's paycheck mugging in the execrable "Little Fockers."
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25A handful of acting moments aside, Being Flynn is a drama without much in the way of rewards.
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25If Robert De Niro knew what was good for him, he'd certainly distance himself from this director and find a new path.