Being Flynn: Descent into Madness

Every once in a while a film comes along that hits you upside the head. It surprises you. It leaves a heavy feeling in your gut, like a steak. You find yourself mulling over that two hours you spent in darkness, watching another person’s story and slowly realizing how much it resembles your own. Not that the characters or the situations or the circumstances are the same, but the feelings and the fears they unearth. It’s alarmingly relatable. That….is Being Flynn. And it’s unmerciful in the best of ways.

Let’s ignore the fact that the majority of moviegoers don’t go to the theatre for uncomfortable catharsis, and view the film on its own for what it’s actually trying to be. No, it won’t win at the box office and no, clearly by its release date, it won’t shovel in awards season statues.  Being Flynn and its writer/director Paul Weitz don’t seem to care. Based on the novel Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nicholas Flynn, the film relies solely on the intricacy of its story: the relationship between father and son. And, whew, that’s enough. 

Nick Flynn (Paul Dano) has gone his whole life never knowing his father Jonathan (Robert De Niro). He’s been an invisible phantom Nick has pieced together through letters and second-hand stories. One thing Nick does know is that he’s destined to be a writer, both his salvation and his shackles. Then one day, of out nowhere, screwing up Nicks already screwed up life, Jonathan shows up asking a favor. He needs help moving out of his apartment. Nick, confused and shocked lends a helping hand. Little does he know that the move out was the beginning of his father’s descent into madness.

Or, perhaps, Jonathan was always a little mad. At this point, the loss of his job, his home and then the coat off his back just accentuates what was there all along: complete delusion. Nick, who has found some happiness with his new job at a homeless shelter, finds this newfound hope suffocated when his father shows up asking for a bed. Jonathan is homeless and now Nick must watch. He writes, “Some part of me knew he would show up, that if I stood in one place long enough he would find me, like you’re taught to do when you’re lost. But they never taught us what to do if both of you are lost, and you both end up in the same place.” It’s that specific moment of collision; we’ve all had it, where suddenly the parent and the child are the same; no one knows what the fuck they’re doing.

Both Nick and Jonathan are drowning, pulling each other under and also propelling themselves to air. It’s a parasitic relationship. It’s messy and heart breaking and uncomfortable but it’s real. And there are moments that ring so true it’s scary.

De Niro has always been good at that….scaring you. He tends to treat his audiences like a dog, forcing your face into your own bullshit, but then always petting you afterward with a satisfied smirk. Damn, he’s good.

And Dano, once again, holds his own in the big leagues (who could forget him up against Daniel Day Lewis). He’s a quiet actor, small, but deep. And there’s something about him, his youth, the bittersweet image that is a good kid clinging to maintain what is good. It works so well when paired with boisterous goliaths like Day Lewis and De Niro, men who have seen it all.

Paul Weitz has returned to what he does so well, simple story-telling. Stories that aren’t afraid to dig up the bones and baggage that come with relationships: human interactions. And Being Flynn is just good enough to make you dust off that suitcase and start to unpack your own. It may not provide the typical escape that people go to the cinema to obtain, but rather gifts you with a story that could unlock an even greater escape within: something that lasts longer than just two-hours in a darkened movie theatre.