Amazon Studios has debuted a new poster for The Tender Bar, George Clooney’s latest film as director. Based on Pulitzer Prize-winning writer J.R. Moehringer’s memoir of the same name, the film stars Tye Sheridan as Moehringer and Ben Affleck as his Uncle Charlie.
Written by William Monahan, the Academy Award-winning scribe behind The Departed, the Massachusetts-set drama explores the relationship between the fatherless J.R. and his uncle, as they bond at a bar overflowing with colorful patrons. The new poster, however, is set outdoors. It features both Uncle Charlie and a young J.R. leaning against a car, with a large blurb occupying the top right-hand corner. The film also stars Lily Rabe, Ron Livingston, Christopher Lloyd, and newcomer Daniel Ranieri.
The Tender Bar is the latest in the Third Coming of Ben Affleck, after he returned to more adult-oriented dramatic fare following his unpleasant experience playing Batman in the DC Extended Universe. Last year, he made a strong bid for an Oscar nomination with Gavin O’Connor’s The Way Back, a film that drew parallels to his real-life struggles with alcohol abuse. Earlier this year, he co-starred in director Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, which didn’t perform as well as anybody involved would’ve liked.
Clooney, meanwhile, has sort of slipped into semi-retirement as an actor following the billion-dollar takeover of his tequila company. He has been busy as a director, though. Just last year, he helmed the science-fiction survival drama The Midnight Sky for Netflix. Considered a major awards contender prior to release, the film debuted to middling reviews and scored just one Academy Award nomination, for Best Visual Effects.
Amazon is giving The Tender Bar a platform release starting with a debut in select New York and Los Angeles theaters on December 17, followed by a nationwide theatrical release on December 22, and culminating with a global release on Prime Video on January 7. You can check out the new poster here and read the official synopsis down below:
The Tender Bar tells the story of J.R. (Sheridan), a fatherless boy growing up in the glow of a bar where the bartender, his Uncle Charlie (Affleck), is the sharpest and most colorful of an assortment of quirky and demonstrative father figures. As the boy’s determined mother (Rabe) struggles to provide her son with opportunities denied to her — and leave the dilapidated home of her outrageous if begrudgingly supportive father (Christopher Lloyd) — J.R. begins to gamely, if not always gracefully, pursue his romantic and professional dreams — with one foot persistently placed in Uncle Charlie’s bar. The Tender Bar is based on the best-selling memoir of the same name by J.R. Moehringer.