Being Flynn (R)

American writer Nick Flynn won the prestigious PEN International award in 2004 for his memoir ‘Another Bullshit Night in Suck City,’ and eight years later the work would be the basis for the Paul Weitz film “Being Flynn.”

The movie begins in Boston in the 1980s and opens with the narration “America has produced only three classical writers; Mark Twain, JD Salinger…and me.”  The “me” being a disheveled Jonathan Flynn (Robert DeNiro) who advises that everything he does is a masterpiece and soon he will be well known. Jonathan then begins his job as a cab driver by mixing booze with his coffee.

The narration then switches from Jonathan to his son Nick (Paul Dano), himself an aspiring poet who hasn’t seen his father in eighteen years. As his girlfriend kicks the unemployed Nick out of their apartment he apologizes to her for his “complete inadequacy as a human being.”

Told in an extraordinarily unique way, the perspective of narration flips from Jonathan to Nick as they are in present day, with
Nick also reminiscing to his childhood; growing up without contact from his father, save for letters Jonathan wrote to him from prison where he boasts about the great novel he is working on – and acts as inspiration for Nick to take up writing. Nick in turn forges a close bond with his mother Jody (Julianne Moore) who struggles with a busy schedule, working two jobs to support her and her son.

Nick begins a relationship with Denise (Olivia Thirlby) who suggests he go to work with her at an area homeless shelter.  Wanting a job that offers some degree of satisfaction, Nick agrees. At the same time, Jonathan is evicted from his apartment and begins to live in his cab. Slowly the neurotic and alcoholic Jonathan falls deeper into despair, eventually losing his cab and wandering the streets at night. By happenstance, Jonathan wanders into the shelter where Nick is working one night, and the two are afforded the opportunity to reconnect under a strange set of circumstances.

“Being Flynn” triumphs with its distinctive schematic – shifting narration from Jonathan and Nick’s perspectives and by highly charged and believable acting performances. Robert DeNiro dazzles as always, portraying the worldly knowledgeable Jonathan, proud though troubled at the film’s onset and mentally and physically unraveling through time. The most elite performance comes from Paul Dano. It’s refreshing to see a lead that doesn’t look like he just peeled himself off the pages of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog and Dano turns in a breathtaking performance as young Nick Flynn.

From his beginnings as a highly talented though unmotivated writer, Nick begins to see the problems of the world from his job at the shelter before he too succumbs to the perils of alcohol and drugs. Each has traits and qualities of the other, as any father and son would. Throughout the film we see Nick becoming Jonathan in both negative and positive ways. The struggles of being a writer are captured perfectly in the film, and passed down from father to son.

Rounding out the story is the perfect atmosphere of the great city of Boston. Its beauty and mystique comes through the screen and isn’t drowned out with the overuse of the Boston accents and slang popularized by other films that are set in Beantown.

“Being Flynn” is a great film and its unique way of storytelling and superb acting performances make it an enjoyable watch.

– by Matt Christopher