Being Flynn (2012)

Does every writer think he’s the greatest one out there? I guess a lot of them do and Robert de Niro’s character Jonathan Flynn states for a fact that he knows he is. Whether that really is the case you won’t know as you are watching Being Flynn, a movie which tells the story of a father and son, both writers. It really isn’t about the writing though, it’s about their broken relationship and the effect that can have on a person.

The son, Nick Flynn (Paul Dano) was raised by his mother (a very small part played by Julianne Moore), with his father out of the picture. The only contact he had with him was through the letters he was sent by him, from prison. His father was a con artist and the never had contact anymore as he was growing up. Nick still clings on to those letters as if he feels like they are the only relationship still present with his father. When all of a sudden he is contacted by him he is stunned. Being Flynn however doesn’t give you the standard plotline you would expect when it comes to broken relationships. As the movie goes on you see Jonathan Flynn’s descent into slowly losing a lot of things and Nick struggling with his own issues. The lives of these two characters only marginally connected.

I liked the originality of the script, but did feel the movie didn’t go anywhere towards the end and felt just slightly long. It was nice to see De Niro in a serious role and doing so to great effect, but Paul Dano is worth mentioning as well as he shows his character is struggling with lots of issues and not being able to decide which are the right decisions to make. Check out the trailer for it, you might think it’s worth a rent.

Score: 6