George Clooney is a pretty reliable presence in the director’s chair, and whilst this is one of his lesser works, there is plenty to recommend. The story of JR is told in two parallel stories. One set in 1973 when he was a small boy living with his Mum and her parents. The other set a decade later as he goes to Yale.
As is usual with films set up that way, one of the storylines works much better than the other. In this case, I found the childhood storyline much more engaging. That is largely due to the relationship between JR (Daniel Ranieri) and a tremendous Ben Affleck who plays his uncle. I would have happily have watched a whole film about those two.
Tye Sheridan who plays the older JR is a fine actor, but his struggles as a college student, and his on-off relationship with his girlfriend are just not as compelling. The decision to make him a writer feels like a way too obvious device to allow him to behave unreasonably and helps fuel a self-obsession that makes him a much less interesting presence.
Clooney shoots in a nicely unfussy way, aside from an enjoyable use of split-screens over the end credits, and this is, overall, a nicely nostalgic watch.
On Amazon Prime.
Rating: 7 out of 10