The Tender Bar (2021)

Some psychologists say that young men need to have a "second father" in their lives to help usher them out of adolescence and into manhood.  That could be a teacher, a coach, an older brother, or for the highly intelligent aspiring writer J.R. Moehringer (Tye Sheridan), it would be his bartender uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck) and the local drunkards at his watering hole.  This George Clooney directed biopic, follows the real-life Pulitzer Prize winner's memoir of the same name, The Tender Bar, as he comes of age in Long Island, New York and eventually goes to Yale.  J.R.'s dad was a mean drunk and his mom had some emotional issues herself, causing them to move around quite a bit when he was younger, so he never really had a steady home or family life as a kid.  The one steady thing in his life was his hard living and loving uncle Charlie, who ran the local bar and was well loved by everyone in the neighborhood.  When his dad fell through on promises, his uncle reluctantly stepped up and helped raised him with his barfly wisdom and formed him into the sort of well adjusted person who went on to go to Ivy League schools and become a wildly successful author and journalist.  Lucky for us too, George Clooney didn't shy away from casting the ever sexy Tye Sheridan in the leading role as young J.R., who has an ongoing sexual relationship with a co-ed who chucks him out of bed more than letting him get too close to her.