This movie is so likeably forgettable that it feels like amnesia in celluloid form.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 19, 2024

A tender, charming, & easily the best directed George Clooney movie

| Jul 26, 2023

The Tender Bar is a feel-good, coming-of-age film with one of Ben Affleck’s best performances.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 21, 2022

The Tender Bar is content to serve you a stiff yet bland drink and chat it up without much of anything substantial to say.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Sep 23, 2022

The Tender Bar was good enough, but it wasn’t great, despite its potential.

| Aug 25, 2022

Clooney’s direction, though a little scattershot at times, keeps the story together and moving forward. He also knows what he has in the sincere and grounded Affleck who ultimately steals the show. It’s the script the holds things back.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 16, 2022

If The Way Back revealed Affleck's courage to channel his drinking problem, The Tender Bar allows him to revise the stigma.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 25, 2022

It begged to go deeper but instead [the film] employs a generic seventies filter that's appropriate for any memory, therefore, it captures none. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jun 16, 2022

The direction is straightforward but not in any way that hones in on an intimate perspective in a meaningful attempt and instead comes across as glossy and hollow.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Jun 8, 2022

Despite an impressive pedigree, iThe Tender Bari is too slight in most regards to be memorable. If anything, its a Hallmark movie with A-list talent, meant to make you feel good while you forget about it moments later.

| Original Score: C+ | Mar 30, 2022

That its at least watchable is an improvement; that it is even occasionally enjoyable feels like a miracle. Clooney's worst instincts occasionally kick in, but generally speaking, its a pleasant enough diversion.

| Original Score: C+ | Mar 19, 2022

Lovely low-key stuff that rarely puts a foot wrong, thanks largely to the casually inviting pitch of Affleck’s anchoring performance.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 4, 2022

George Clooney's tendency to water down his concoction makes the drink a forgettable one.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 1, 2022

About as good as it sounds.

| Original Score: C | Feb 22, 2022

The Tender Bar is a different kind of movie steeped in the nostalgia of a bygone era defined by cigarette smoke, cast iron friendships, and male-dominated societies.

| Feb 18, 2022

The Tender Bar in a nutshell: mostly harmless, perfectly average, with a great third-comeback Ben Affleck performance.

| Feb 16, 2022

Director George Clooney doesnt do anything flashy with the story, which is actually a rather comforting decision. Clooney lets the film flow quietly, and he allows Affleck to provide essential tenderness and emotional support.

| Feb 13, 2022

George Clooney tries his hand at telling such a story as he explores growing up in the non-nuclear family in the 1970s and 1980s.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 12, 2022

The Tender Bar is a laid-back, coming-of-age story that at times struggles with pacing, but Ben Affleck's relaxed, low-key charm keeps the film afloat.

| Feb 11, 2022

All-around great performances yet doesnt lose sight of its main theme of how a neighborhood and an uncle can help tremendously raise a child and a teenager.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 8, 2022