Being Flynn

Directed by Paul Weitz

(R)

**

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The big revelation in Being Flynn is that Robert De Niro isn’t finished as an actor, said Mary Pols in Time. After a “string of lazy, hacky performances” in the Fockers franchise and elsewhere, the touching turn that De Niro gives here as a father suffering from mental illness and alcoholism is more than a welcome surprise. Unfortunately, the story is about how the character reconnects with an adult son, and a meek Paul Dano doesn’t pull his weight, said Stephen Whitty in the Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger. In past roles, Dano has occasionally managed to “channel fire,” but as a homeless-shelter employee trying to keep a distance from his unpredictable dad, he manages little more than a “perpetually sad mouth and perplexed brows.” Director Paul Weitz has potent raw materials to work with, but he simply “can’t bring the pieces together,” said Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News. Working from a powerful 2004 memoir by Nick Flynn, Weitz uses voice-overs in an attempt to knit multiple story strands together, but those “end up being more clichéd than clever.”