Being Flynn is a truly miserable and depressing film. Nothing about it made me want to continue watching it after about 45 minutes and it caused me to wonder just what exactly I ever find satisfying about depressing movies in the first place. Of course, while watching a film with few, if any, redeeming qualities it doesn’t make for a good starting point to ask such a question. So, instead I began wondering what would have made this film better? What was it about the film that made me dislike it so much?
After some thought I came to a conclusion and just like any action film, a dramatic piece such as Being Flynn should be able to exist outside of the suffering it inflicts on its audience. Think of this in the same way any action film shouldn’t necessarily depend on the action alone, but hopefully there’s a story that accompanies the “blow ’em up” moments. To that point, I should be able to describe to you the action scenes in any action film and you should still be able to get a lot of enjoyment out of it if it’s any good. The same goes for Being Flynn.
I should be able to strip away every awful, downtrodden, unfortunate aspect of this film to the point all that’s left is the true essence of the story. Unfortunately, there is no essence, there’s nothing but sadness and one scene after another of hardscrabble, trying times as a belligerent drunk slowly fades into the darkness while pulling his son down with him. Sorry, I need a lot more than that.
The miserable aspects of any movie shouldn’t be the heart of the story. Instead there should be something more to the narrative; something to hold on to, run with and learn from. This “something” can be as simple as well written dialogue, unique storytelling, imaginative and original themes or, better yet, characters I care about. Too bad none of that can be found in Being Flynn, an adaptation of Nick Flynn’s 2004 memoir “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City”, a title that aptly describes my time in the theater watching this exercise in cinematic sorrow.
The worst part of it all is the fact Robert De Niro, Paul Dano and Olivia Thirlby give great performances along with supporting work from Wes Studi, Julianne Moore and Chris Chalk. But the only character I found even the inkling of concern for was Thirlby’s character as I only hoped she could somehow manage to get away from Dano.
The film begins with two separate approaches to the story and, as anyone that’s seen a movie before knows, they will soon come together. First there’s Jonathan Flynn (De Niro), a racist, homophobic ex-con and self-professed “classic” writer next to the likes of Mark Twain and J.D. Salinger. Without a word published, though, he has to rely on his wages as a taxi driver to maintain a living.
On the other side of the story is Jonathan’s son, Nick (Dano). Nick hasn’t seen his father for 18 years, his mother is dead and he’s stuck between jobs. When we first meet him he has found a new place to live, which leads him to Denise (Thirlby), an employee at a homeless shelter who convinces Nick to join her there. He does and he slowly climbs the ranks and becomes a regular employee, finding value in helping others.
The narrative then falls into traditional storytelling trappings once Jonathan falls on hard times, is evicted, loses his license and finds himself living on the streets only to eventually come knocking on the door of the same shelter Nick works at. From here we watch as Jonathan’s quality of life continues to decline and his situation brings Nick down even further. Drugs play a role as does alcohol and writer-director Paul Weitz (About a Boy) doesn’t shy from getting down and dirty with the material.
This is pretty heavy stuff and it’s hard to come down too hard on a film that paints such a vivid and torturous picture of what it might be like to be homeless during a cold New York winter. However, just because the subject matter hits us where we feel doesn’t mean we should overlook weak storytelling and a cast of characters I couldn’t care less about. On top of that, there are some strange tonal shifts in this flick, particularly some curious attempts at humor during a pair of sex scenes early on that seem as if they would’ve been better suited in a different film.
There’s a saying that runs through Being Flynn that Jonathan first utters to his son that goes like this, “We were put on this Earth to help other people.” It’s far from profound and if a lesson is meant to be learned it flew over my head, but this is as close to a message as I got out of this picture.
As a director and storyteller Weitz needed to get the audience to care about the people on screen because otherwise all your left to do is watch miserable people lead miserable lives. No one is paying for a ticket to see that. There needs to be that human connection, something the audience can hold on to. The lead characters could end up dead in a gutter by the film’s end, but if at any point the audience is afforded the opportunity to connect with that character there’s a chance they’ll believe that character’s story was worth hearing. In the case of Being Flynn, I didn’t need to hear any of this story. I got nothing out of it and won’t think of it again.
