“Being Flynn,” a passion project from writer/director Paul Weitz based on his own adaptation of Nick Flynn’s memoir, Another Bulls—t Night in Suck City, is the darkly humorous and heartbreaking story of Flynn’s marginal existence in his 20s as he tries to navigate life in the big city made even more difficult when the albatross that is his father, Jonathan Flynn, who disappeared from his life 18 years before, suddenly reappears.
Raised by a loving, but seriously overworked single mother, Nick has no visual memories of his father, a man who left the family never to reappear or provide any kind of support. Nick would occasionally receive letters from his father in which Jonathan would proclaim his gifts as a master story teller and writer, claiming that his talents would be internationally recognized as soon as his brilliantly conceived and executed novel was published. He was, if he didn’t mind saying so, a wonderful raconteur whose company was always in demand, and be even more in demand once he received the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes that would be his due. If his progress and genius were in any way delayed it was because if a conspiracy on the part of those he hated most – homosexuals, blacks and Jews. Bemused, even at an early age, Nick realized that his father had left no hole in his life.
A narcissist of epic proportions, Jonathan suddenly appears one day to ask Nick’s help. Jonathan has been evicted from his apartment and needs the use of Nick’s pickup truck. How he knows where Nick is or even that he has a pickup truck only adds to the mystery that is Jonathan. And as mercurially as he appeared, once the pickup truck is unloaded, Jonathan disappears once again. It is the fateful, but clearly not serendipitous, second reappearance of Jonathan upon which most of the story is hinged, or more appropriately, unhinged. Nick, in need of both a job and direction has begun a job at a local homeless shelter, a place where he finds the family he is missing and the direction he is lacking. Under the guidance of the shelter’s leader, Captain, Nick finds purpose. And then one very cold day arrives the knife through the heart that is his father, now homeless but still proud and relentlessly racist – the future Nick fears might be genetically his. “Why do you exist?” Jonathan shouts at Nick, “Because I made you!” And therein lies the problem.
Weitz has made what is essentially a two handed character study with some excellent supporting players. Paul Dano as Nick is the perfect lost boy – heartbreakingly vulnerable with a bravado bolstered by addiction. He compels you to feel Nick’s dilemma, a dilemma Nick is loathe to recognize himself – what does he owe and what is his responsibility? Dano is not pretty, his features are irregular, his gait is awkward, he’s not a Hollywood leading man, but he makes you, forces you to see into his soul. How can you not feel Nick’s terror and fear and regret? That you want to embrace him and cuff him at the same time is a tribute to Dano’s understanding of the character.
As his girlfriend Denise, Olivia Thirlby is ice and hopeful anticipation. Julianne Moore as Nick’s mother is the warm, understated presence who allows you to understand that if there is hope for her son in life it will have come from her ability to find humor and love in difficult situations, establishing an unbreakable bond with her son. The casting of Wes Studi as Captain, the head of the homeless shelter, was genius. Studi, a shamefully underused actor, is a serious, grounded, deeply felt presence of importance and redemption; he is the anchor from both a story and human perspective.
The unmistakable star of this film, however, is Robert De Niro as Jonathan Flynn. De Niro, an actor of deserved renown, adds another important, wrenchingly realistic performance to a career with no end of vivid characters. His Jonathan is an egomaniacal, single-minded man defined by his hates who travels through life on his own misguided terms unable to recognize his own limitations, only those of everyone around him. Whether living an angry marginal but independent existence or compelled to depend on others for sustenance in a shelter surrounded by what he considers the scum of society, De Niro’s Jonathan is unbowed and incapable of change, even with his own survival on the line. This is one of De Niro’s finest performances and the only pity is that this excellent film is being released so early in the year that the genius of his portrayal might be forgotten when award nominations are being considered.
Opening March 2 at the Landmark and ArcLight Hollywood.
Neely also writes a blog about writers in television and film at www.nomeanerplace.com.
