It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Here we have over 100 minutes of the same topic being told over and over! What was Director Paul Weitz thinking?We see over and over Nick Flynn's relationship with his over stressed mother and psychotic bum father. Dano is sadly one dimensional and predictable - even with all the evidence before him of how he will end up if he doesn't change his ways. De Niro is a wise old sage in one scene then a screaming maniac in another, then a boozed up drunk in another scene and all the while he says the same thing over and over to Nick (his son).We - the viewers - know how this story will end. Believe me, it's no surprise! The ending of the movie might as well have been the beginning! I was bored watching and now I'm bored writing about this movie.

This follows the unexpected reunion between an irresponsible conniving father, and his son who he's been totally estranged from for 18 years. The only reason he tracks his son down at all is for help vacating his apartment which the son obliges him with, telling you something about both of them. The son is emotionally scarred by the absence of his father and the cruel circumstances of his mother's suicide. Perhaps against his better judgement he reaches out to his father but is not surprisingly burned in the process. It becomes about the boy's battle with his demons, decoupling himself from his father's curse, and reclaiming his life.It's painful to watch the boy struggling with the urge to cling to the life buoy his father represents, but holding himself back because of his residual anger at his father's absence and negligence. If he handles the situation wrong he could end up going down with a sinking ship.You get an idea of what it's like going from living in an apartment to living on the street - not something I recall seeing on the big screen before, so worth watching for that alone. Really refreshing to see De Niro trying to act again after some of the vapid paydays he's been churning out over the last decade or so. I thought he'd totally run out of steam but clearly there's a bit left in the tank. He does a great job here anyway. Quite believable as the complex narcissistic rogue.Paul Dano turns in a decent performance but wouldn't have been my choice for the role. I think he may be a good actor some day but he's not there yet IMO. It all seems too deliberate and affected. Julianne Moore and Olivia Thirlby are pretty good in support.The film has an honest and believable quality about it; just lets the story tell itself without trying to be too sophisticated. There's no OTT horrific cold turkey scenes, no explicit sex scenes, no gratuitous violence. All pretty mundane and believable stuff, which worked well here I thought.All in all this is a superior father/son tale told simply. Definitely worth a watch.

In what must have come as a shock to the poor old bugger, De Niro gets parachuted into a real film! For quite some time now De Niro has simply had to turn up on set, stay awake for a couple of hours and collect a handsome pay check. In what must have been bewildering for a man of his advancing years such vaguely familiar phrases from the mists of time such as "plot" "characterization" and "motivation" were being thrown at him from all angles. Could the venerable duffer rise to the challenge? Partly... Even though strictly speaking De Niro isn't the star he certainly carries this movie, his co-stars, stunned like dazzled rabbits caught in the headlights, don't really convince. Paul Dano continues to play the same disaffected teenager we saw in "Little Miss Sunshine" while the rest of the cast keep there heads down and make for cover. Julianne Moore takes the bull by the horns, pity there aren't any scenes with her and De Niro.

Saw this one on DVD from my public library. De Niro and Dano pair well in this father/son story, dirty and gripping at times, alternately sad and funny, it pays off if you watch it all the way through.Robert De Niro is Jonathan Flynn, by his own account one of only three great American authors. Problem is his book has not been published, he is estranged from his grown son for 18 years, and he drives a taxi in New York. He has a running conflict with his downstairs neighbors who play their live music too loud. After an incident where he starts an altercation he is evicted. Paul Dano is his son, Nick Flynn. His mother is dead, he knows that he is his father's son, he has been influenced by his father to become a writer, but when he meets up with dad again fears that he is following too closely in dad's footsteps, becoming a delusional failure and a drunk.Their chance to meet again comes a few weeks after Nick takes a job at a NYC homeless shelter. After Jonathan becomes homeless, lives in his cab for a while, then wrecks it, has to go to the shelter to get out of the winter weather. Jonathan and Nick have an uneasy time of it, but this eventually helps both of them see a way out of their respective plights.Julianne Moore is Jody Flynn , Nick's deceased mother.SPOILERS: Jody had killed herself after reading an unfinished story her son wrote, and he had carried that blame. At one point his dad assures him that no one can cause another to kill themselves. After several tense encounters Jonathan finally gets his own apartment again, seems to be coping well, Nick goes back to college gets his degree and teaches, and writes an award-winning book of poetry.