Script Analysis: “The Tender Bar” — Part 1: Scene-By-Scene Breakdown

A week-long analysis of the 2021 drama starring Ben Affleck and directed by George Clooney.

Reading scripts. Absolutely critical to learn the craft of screenwriting. The focus of this bi-weekly series is a deep structural and thematic analysis of each script we read. Our daily schedule:

Monday: Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
Tuesday: Plot
Wednesday: Characters
Thursday: Themes
Friday: Dialogue
Saturday: Takeaways

Today: Scene-By-Scene Breakdown.

Here is my take on this exercise from a previous series of posts — How To Read A Screenplay:

After a first pass, it’s time to crack open the script for a deeper analysis and you can do that by creating a scene-by-scene breakdown. It is precisely what it sounds like: A list of all the scenes in the script accompanied by a brief description of the events that transpire.

For purposes of this exercise, I have a slightly different take on scene. Here I am looking not just for individual scenes per se, but a scene or set of scenes that comprise one event or a continuous piece of action. Admittedly this is subjective and there is no right or wrong, the point is simply to break down the script into a series of parts which you then can use dig into the script’s structure and themes.

The value of this exercise:

• We pare down the story to its most constituent parts: Scenes.
• By doing this, we consciously explore the structure of the narrative.
• A scene-by-scene breakdown creates a foundation for even deeper analysis of the story.

This week: The Tender Bar (2021). Download the screenplay here.

Screenplay by William Monahan, based on the memoir by J.R. Moehringer

Plot summary: A boy growing up on Long Island seeks out father figures among the patrons at his uncle’s bar.

The Tender Bar
Scene by Scene breakdown
By Ava Regal
GoIntoTheStory.com

1–2: A young Mom in her twenties, a pretty, teary eyed and now tired driver with her son (6–8) Young Jr, are on one of their terrible drives again to her childhood home in Manhasset, NY, in her loaded jalopy, Gremlin. Laden with piles of suitcases, lamps and trash bagged gear the car indicates another failed relationship. They come across Uncle Charlie, playing in the Memorial field in front of Grampa’s house. In the eyes of Young Jr Uncle Charlie is a God, patrolling the infield like a flamingo, amongst his drunk, unathletic but happy teammates, Grandpa greets them as they go in; He’s the don’t give a fuck owner of this don’t give a fuck house.

3–4: External and Internal shots establish this chaotic, but lively family home Grandmother, Grampa, Uncle Charlie, and refugees from various aborted families with their mothers back at the grandparents. (kids ranging up to high school age) Aunt Ruth, and her five daughters and one son. A family meal with mismatched plates, eating, snuffling, and salting heavily. Now MOM and Young Jr who watches everything bug eyed as the one alien attendee and an alien especially good at observation. His relationship with Uncle Charlie is established with Uncle Charlie handing him 5 bucks, winking at him. Dogs and Cats wandering around add to the general Melee, but Young Jr likes it. He likes to have people. A Transistor radio is always close on in the picture and we will find out why, broadcasting a horse race. Mom unpacks in the shared bedroom.

5–6: The radio becomes more significant as Mom, says No to Young JR touching the one in the bedroom. Then in the kitchen the next day. The very Seventies male radio voice gets cut short by Aunt Ruth cracking the off button and nearly destroying it in the process. Young JR says. That was my father. It’s clearly a subject not to be discussed. As Young Jr is instructed to get on with eating his cereal by Uncle Charlie.

7–9: Uncle Charlie is teaching Young JR to play cards and instructing him about his father. You were very young when your father left. Your father is an asshole and not an accidental asshole. He’s an asshole who can’t handle his liquor. He tells Young Jr that there are two rules in cards: I don’t let you win. If you beat me, you beat me, but I don’t let you win. That way you get a jump on life. By tasting defeat. Young Jr reveals he is good at reading. Uncle Charlie advises him not to try to play sport and don’t think his father is going to save him. Despite this Young Jr can’t help but search for him on the radio, while Mom is looking for THE VOICE (the father) in her own way. Waiting for communication in the mailbox. Young Jr. talks to the radio as if he is talking to his father, letting him know Mom is tired and could use some money.

10–14: We meet JR in his twenties thinking about the past, studying on a train towards New Haven for an interview at Yale. He’s remembering back to Uncle Charlies explanation of a Saturday morning for men, in his eyes. He’s not sick he’s hungover. He tells Young JR to answer the phone when it rings to say he’s not there. This he dutifully does and it’s his father on the end of the line. Calling to invite him to a ball game with him. (a girl can be heard in the background) Arranging to pick him up at 6.30 from Grandpas. Its clear Uncle Charlie sit doesn’t believe he’ll show up but keeps it to himself. Not his business. Young JR is in rapture. Uncle Charlie sends him to the local bar for cigarettes. JR is back on the train remembering this in pain, remembering how he was ready at 4.30.

In VO as JR remembers the day is father didn’t show up. He didn’t know what he even looked like but felt he would know. He waits all afternoon and into the night long after the game has started, which can be heard on the radios across town. His mother arrives back from work to find his tear-stained face, revealing that he thinks he has fucked up. She says they’re the two musketeers as he nods crying silently.

15–16: JR on the Metro more than ten years later, head against the glass. His memory goes to the more optimistic one of Uncle Charlie in his bar the Dickens entertaining behind the bar. He’s fascinated by Uncle Charlies moves and that bottles and books compete for shelf space in this unlikely setting. Young JR asks Uncle Charlie to go to something his mother can’t get to. This turns out to be a psychologists meeting called by the psychologist because he believes that the fact that JR doesn’t know the meaning of his name, which he believes is just initials, is causing him an identity crisis and causing rage. Uncle Charlie, outwits the psychologist, pointing out in no uncertain terms that the only reason he’s called JR in is because he’s identified MOM as a single mother and is trying to hit on her, traumatizing Young JR in the process. They leave.

17–18: Mom and Grandpa bantering about his stinginess with love, having therefore no understanding of education, whilst trying to keep Young JR’s mind and eyes off the radio. She declares that she has no idea how, but he is going to Harvard or Yale and then on to law school, much to the derision and amusement of Charlie and Grandpa.

As Mom leaves for work, his father, The Voice suddenly appears through the back screen doors. The voice takes Young Jr out for a drive in his car, dispensing his narcissistic wisdom as he drives just around the block before summarily dropping Young Jr back at the house. He dispenses some cash, cutting even that by half before doling it out. Uncle Charlie jumps in the car and confronts him about the 30 bucks he owes him still.

19–21: Young JR is still heading North to New Haven. A V/O by JR reveals that The Voice got arrested for child support and paid a fraction of it. Leaving the state and calling up drunk to threaten Mom and threaten to kidnap Young JR, who is warned never to go near him.

Uncle Charlie tells him that his father gets drunk and kicks everybody’s ass including a cop. Creating havoc even on their honeymoon. Worrying about his name still, Young JR gets a glimmer of an idea from watching Lawrence of Arabi about choosing his own name. Back in the Bar Young JR is warmed by the crude banter between customers and Uncle Charlie. He loves the men. In the bedroom later that night he asks his MOM why she married his father. He doesn’t want to be a junior and doesn’t want anyone to know the association. He comes to terms with his father being a dick, because he has other men to look up to along with Uncle Charlie, in the bar.

22–23: The Dickens is in full cry with Uncle Charlie not working, drinking, holding forth and arm wrestling. A customer says to get the kid out of there. Uncle Charlie declares Everybody comes to the bar. The bar is life. He coaches Young JR about the game, about life, drinking, taking care of his mother and how not to live his life and keep his money like a drunk. What he calls the Male Sciences. Curious now, Young JR asks about the books lining the area behind the bar. He asks if he can read them. Uncle Charlie advises him to read them all, fill up until it starts to come out the other end. Then you’re a writer. We cut to Young JR. learning to type on a 1940’s typewriter tucked away in the attic. A discussion ensues at the family breakfast over “The Family Gazette” and an article that Young JR has written. Uncle Charlie takes it seriously and says that Young Jr has ‘it’. Not saying he’s good, but that he could be. He takes Young Jr to his room and reveals behind sliding closet doors books stacked floor to ceiling, back three deep. Every college English Standard, plus everything that derives from successful exposure to same. Taking away the closet doors now that the books have been exposed, he tells Young JR to read them all until they come out the other end. A David Copperfield book’s silhouette on the front is the logo of THE DICKENS with the caption “My first purchase in the Public House”. He glances over at Charlies radio, but the radio now has competition…The Books. We cut to JR on the train with the priest who seeing how emotional he is about getting into Yale, encourages him to mention his ‘last confession”. Saying “you want to get in. Truth may not be your friend in college applications”

24–25: In the bar, Young Junior is learning more male sciences, watching female and male customers flirting, Backing Up a drink, spending the money for Gampa’s cigarettes he’s been sent for to ‘Back Up’ Bobo, a customer’s drink, after he did the same for him. At home, after Young Juniors, Mom asks him if she’s doing her best, before leaving for work, Uncle Charlie gives him a lesson on the difference between women who want to talk about their feelings and men. Men should pretend nothing bothers you and shit, shower, shave and show the fuck up. Men don’t have feelings.

26–27: In class the next day Father-son breakfast is announced. Young Junior tells the teacher he doesn’t have a father. The teacher suggests an uncle. Young Junior says he might not come as he doesn’t have feelings and asks if he can be excused from the breakfast. The teacher says she will call his mother.

Back in the kitchen, after much discussion about forcing The Voice to go, Grandma tells Grampa to take him. Not a likely choice in his dishevelled state. Uncle Charlie is pissed. Cut to the living room in the morning Grampa appears looking like what he really is: a well-travelled man with a knack for classics. He is Brilliantly turned out, looking like a gray-templed movie star of the Stewart Grainger class. They are all stunned. Mom starts crying.

28–29: At the Father and kids breakfast Grampa shows a whole other side to himself, educated, humorous and supportive of Young JR, saying he’s the likeliest to be able to leave his house on his own abilities. But he also reveals while parked outside the house when they get home that Mom has a tumour on her thyroid and is going to have it out. It might be malignant.

30–31: Young JR is waiting on the stoop he waited on for his father for Mom to arrive back from her operation with Uncle Charlie. In pain, and feeling sorry for herself, she reveals that The Voice one beat her up. Upset Young JR is worried if he’s like his father. She says she needs him to succeed. More tears. They hug. As God is her witness he’s going to Yale.

32 -33: In the bar, Uncle Charlie teaches Young JR Wordy Gurdy — everyone is amazed at his answers. They agree to cut cards to see who gives him their seat at the Mets Phillies. He’s thrilled. On the pick-ups Pat, Uncle Charlies girlfriend is coming, a surprise to Young JR. Pat is a working-class kind of drinker. She homes in on Young JR. He responds to her warmth about his Mom.

34–35: Shea Stadium. Uncle Charlie is totally focused on the game. Pat asks Young Jr about his Moms cancer. He cries. Uncle Charlie comforts him, furious with Pat. Tells her they’ll talk later. He takes that moment to hand Young Jr a baseball with the signature Tom Seaver. Says Mom is fine, and they won’t see Pat again after this. Saying you gotta be able to do without people and they gotta know it.

36- 40: Yale Campus. JR looks like he’s going to vomit before his interview. In the Kitchen at home we see the Yale application. Mom Smiling, Uncle Charlie finishing reading his essay. He says it’s not bad and signs a cheque for the application fee. Sitting in her terrible car Mom kisses the application envelope before JR posts it. He’s somewhat mortified. Isn’t this gambling. He feels he won’t get in. She’s confident he will. He posts the letter. Very close on JR on the Metro North train. His head on the glass thinking.

41–42: Uncle Charlie drives them to the beach. Another life lesson on they way. When I’m cooking food and you ask if you can have some food, what do I say? “Of course, you can have some food, I’m making fucking dinner” Young Jr. chimes in. Bobo, gets in and is dressed in indescribable beachwear. Joey D gets in another character. He knows all about Young JR. Chief gets in, emerging from the liquor store. They’re off to the Beach! The men from the Dickens march across the sand, with Young JR tagging after like a baby elephant. We see the men wading into the water holding their beers and red party cups high.

43: The letter from Yale lies on the kitchen table. Everyone is there, Grampa, Grandma, Mom, Uncle Charlie, JR. They’re trying to decide who’s going to open it. After much discussion, Uncle Charlie grabs the envelope and opens it. He’s got the place at Yale. And his financial needs have also been met. Much jubilation and tears. Should he tell Dad. Uncle Charlie gives him a strange look. Disappointment? But says why not?

Cut to:

44 -45: Uncle Charlie is going through the Yale catalogue. He’s telling JR to challenge himself and do Directed Studies, only open to a select number of freshmen. Mom is not sure. JR asks what’s good for law. Mom needs him to be a lawyer. Uncle Charlie says Fuck that shit. Always take philosophy. And when Mom tries to give him money not to take it. Did he call his father? No. He leaves for Yale with Uncle Charlie. Saying he’ll come home a lot. Mom says it’s not home its where you go when you fail. JR doesn’t agree. Yale can’t fix everything.

46–47: JR moving into Yale, meeting his Upper Middle Class Dorm mate Bayard. Being quizzed by the father he summons his inner Uncle Charlie when asked about his background. Turning it right back on him. Winning his first dogfight. Impressing Bayard. Cut to classroom scene, where Professor Van Dyke is challenging the entire class to essay on the Iliad. Jr is not paying attention; he has noticed across the room Sidney the most unattainable woman you ever saw. She goes out with the very wealthy Stinky.

48: JR feels everything is unattainable. JR, Bayard and Jimmy discussing whether its luck in different forms that got them into Yale. Bayard says JR believes society’s bullshit interpretation of you and everything else. That’s why he can’t write. Not because Homer makes you feel like you suck. JR really wants Bayard to meet Uncle Charlie. Tells them he has a bar. They really want to meet him too. JR believes that to do well at Yale you have to have a foundation. Bayard counters with you have to have balls. When you have luck, run with it.

49–50: Back at the Dickens. Uncle Charlie is watching the Knicks as JR, Bayard and Jimmy show up on the day he is now legal to be in the bar. The boys get wasted having been ‘backed up’ by all the usual suspects in the bar, interacting with all the characters. Joey D says anywhere is the same as prison. Find the main guy who’s a problem and kick his ass. That’s it. The boys think Uncle Charlie is JR’s old man. JR says no his old man is in a radio. With Bayard and Jimmy collapsed unconscious at the end of the evening Uncle Charlie wades in with advice. JR had a bad hand. Bayard owns the casino. JR says he’s a fish out of water. The first rule is if someone is an asshole and puts you down, never take it seriously. If somebody makes a big thing about social position, it means they don’t have it. They’re nervous. He’s a good looking kid, a threat to their women, their positions, no advantages, seven- two, like a bad poker hand, but there on ability only. Says he’ll throw JR out of the bar if he sees him down at mouth again because of someone like that. He’ll 86 him. That’s when you bet everything when you’ve got nothing. Throws him Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier.

51–52: Back in New Haven, finishing their beers thinks Uncle Charlie thinks he’s a dick. Bayard, says no, he thinks you’re in danger of being a dick and a pussy. Two different things. Bayard casually gives him some tips. JR thinks he’s an oracle. Bayard leads the way into the party. Sidney is there, seemingly on her own. She turns to JR, in the depths of thinking about what Bayard has said. They have an awkward exchange, but out of some internal resource he offers to walk her home as she’s leaving. She agrees. On the way home she asks about his name. He says its complicated. She manages to get it out of him. He’s nervous. Doesn’t want to ask too many questions of her. She asks him if he’s feeling NOCD. Not our class. She presses him on his relationship with his father. She’s very perceptive. She asks him if he wants to study together. She will make dinner. Its Sevens and Twos.

53–54: Home in the kitchen, Mom is taken with JR being in love. She’s Lower upper middle class. Charlie’s view is it means people think you’re rich. But nobody sees the actual rich. They fuckin hide so nobody kills them. With Charlie gone JR opens up to Mom about not feeling good enough for Sidney. Besides becoming a lawyer, so he can sue his father, now he’s concerned about getting his heart broken, like sitting on the steps waiting for Dad. Charlie says that’s pathological. JR asks Mom permission to go to Sidney’s for Christmas. In the Dickens, Charlie asks him how many dates before he scored. (intercuts to Sidney’s apartment him scoring) Uncle Charlie Dispenses his usual advice. When you meet her family, what will they think about someone who ditches his mother on Christmas. If someone is worth your time, they’re there. You don’t have to chase them. Remember that.

55 -57: JR bumps into the priest again on the train. The priest watches as Sidney waiting on the platform, full Love Story shit greets JR. On the way to the house in the car, she tells him not to read into things, he’s just going somewhere for Christmas. She’s so delicate, so beautiful, so Hepburn, above him. She wants to pull over and fuck in the snowy woods like wild animals.

58–59: They get to the house, and she leads him straight up to his room, Sidney immediately starts taking her clothes off. As does he. The woods wasn’t enough like animals for her. She rolls onto him. We cut to. Sidney’s Dad hearing the wild fucking, turning off his own light.

60 -62: In the morning, she tells JR over coffee in bed her parents have already heard you, they want to meet you, but she thinks she should take him to the train. It’s complicated, she’s feeling weird. She’s sorry she brought him there for Xmas. She thinks she’s seeing someone else. Cut to: The breakfast room with an actual breakfast. He’s invited in by her father to eat. Her Mom subjects him to withering judgement and criticism. He tries to make conversation but it’s clear once she starts mentioning his father where this is going. He verbally fights back. He tells them is mother always liked to drive around and look at houses like this and wonder what life is like in them. Now he can tell her. When asked what he studies by the father he says people. I’ve always studied people, and this is great. Uncle Charlies inner voice is looking. Tell them to go fuck themselves. He orders a taxi, ignoring Sidney who has had a change of heart and is in tears. He recounts the episode to the driver who says Psychos do that as a test.

63–64: A year and half later its seniors. Sidney and JR are headboard banging again. Sidney is getting agitated again. JR is confused again. He thinks she wants something he’s not thinking. Or does she want him to think it? Again, she says. I’m seeing someone. JR meets the Priest again on the metro North Train car. JR is scribbling in his notebook. The priest staring at him. Many things are troubling JR, Yale, his father, being raised in a bar, His Mom, her struggles and that he’s a poor boy who wants a rich girl. The priest says that if she loved you, she’d take you poor. But it seems JR’s real theme is the absent father. Either you want to worship him or kill him. It’s very similar to the hidden God the Priest tells him. How else do you think people become priests?

65- 66: The Dickens bar. JR is despondent. He confesses that atmospherically he was going to ask Sidney to marry him. Uncle Charlie is wide eyed. No pot to piss in. What did I tell you, no pot to piss in, no car, no girls for you? Bayard shows up, he’s heard the news from about nine people worried JR was going to kill himself. He has the keys to his brothers place and suggests they go there and get hammered. Bayard asks JR what he needs. He wants to be a writer, but he sucks. Bayard says if you suck at writing that’s when you become a journalist. JR says he’s not going to law school. His mother does want him to be happy, but they don’t know how. And nobody really thinks they should be, because that’s the way it is in the lower lower middle classes when your father is a fucking asshole. JR is losing it.

67–68: Bags packed and leaving campus he sees Sidney walking away. Finis. Simple as that. The phone rings, it’s his father. He will miss the graduation. No surprise there. He says he’s stopped drinking and JR has made the apologizing to people list. Wow. JR gets in a dig about his mother getting pregnant by him while at college. The response from the voice, a dig at his mother. He runs again, he’s on air in 15 minutes. Laying back on his bed JR remembers telling Sidney what his stories are about. She tells him to move on.

69–70: Graduation day. Mom and Uncle Charlie are there. Mom in a state of delirium. Uncle Charlie anchoring her, but he’d rather JR had a car. Afterwards in Webster Hall, JR tells Mom he’s not looking at law schools, he’s going to be a novelist. She’s worried it’s not a proper job and that publishing is going more towards memoir. He keeps hearing this. At least he won’t have to make stuff up. JR wants Mom to dream for herself now. He gives her a female sized Yale Class ring. He doesn’t like male jewellery and since they are the musketeers and did this together…Its for her.

71–72: In the Dickens with Bayard, JR is shattered. Bayard says you’ve closed the circle with one parent, what about the Voice. Chief backs up their graduation drinks. They banter about the cost of a Yale education and what it all means. Uncle Charlie answers the ringing phone. He hands JR the receiver. It was Sidney. They meet in a brunch restaurant in Manhattan. She looks more beautiful than ever. She wants to be friends just not romantic or sexual. He tells her he’s writing his first novel about the bar. The traditional first novel, which is about your personal shit is now memoir. He thinks its honest. He asks if she’d like it if he was at the Times. She says she loves him anyway; she just doesn’t want a relationship. There are no rules. People change. JR senses a glimmer of hope. He wants to go to her place. She’s living with someone.

73–74: In the Dickens. JR is a drunken mess. Uncle Charlie reminds him of the male sciences. Have a job and a car with all your shit in it. Be independent so that someone might want you and so you can get away if they don’t. He can drink or get even. JR decides to take his clips to the New York Times. The personnel woman at the Times says the editors think his clips are good but they want to see more before they decide. He doesn’t have more. She goes and checks, comes back, and asks him if he wants to see the newsroom. Not if he doesn’t have a job. A beat. She takes him to look at the newsroom. She takes him to meet ‘his’ editor. Instead of bursting into tears he says OK.

75 -76: The Dickens. Uncle Charlie advising JR how to handle things with Sidney. He’s already blown it by letting her know what’s happening. He’s let her know that he wants her back. Has he gone and stared at her building in the rain and shit? We intercut to JR staring at Sidney’s building, in the rain and shit. He’s still hanging on in there. Uncle Charlie says girls decide very fast. It’s a pattern her abandoning him and coming back. He announces to the bar Charlie JR got hired by the Times. Cheers go up. Mom arrives just at that moment

Times Editorial office, the editor despite picking out some finer details of punctuation tells JR he has a by-line in the New York Times.

77–78: Grand Central Oyster Bar. Bayard and JR discussing his promotion and the fact that he still doesn’t have the background Sidney is looking for. He thinks the Times means something, but Bayard says no, it’s a book that means something. But Sidney will never call out of the blue because she doesn’t love him, she’s dumped him nine times and she’s getting married on Memorial Day. What JR does next is going to be important. The priest is visible in the crowd below, sees him, holds up his wrist and taps his watch face.

In the Dickens same night JR is reading A Fan’s notes. He gets in an argument with a well-dressed and perfectly ok stranger who asks what he’s reading and what it’s about. Drunk and angry he says that the book is about the same thing that life is about. Love and pain and death and disappointment. If you don’t know, that it’s how it’s about don’t ask people what they are fucking reading. The stranger says do you want to step outside. JR says he’s not gay at which point he is clubbed off the bar stool with one right hook, ending up on the floor among his books and papers. Uncle Charlie picks him. JR tells him Sidney is getting married. Uncle Charlies says what do I always tell you don’t try to be on a team that’s not picking you. Chief says he acted like his father. To lighten the mood Uncle Charlie begins a pop quiz. He reminds JR that people write best when their hearts are broken. Its scientific.

79–80: At the Times newsroom, JR is still a copyboy. One of the carbons is the announcement of Sidney’s wedding. The editor summons him to his office. It’s bad news. Despite saying some of his pieces have been outstanding, he cannot offer JR a position as a reporter. Suggesting that he needs more experience on a smaller newspaper. No thank you he says. As he heads back to his station, he receives a phone call. Uncle Charlie is in hospital. He’s had a minor heart attack. Uncle Charlie says he can use it as a dramatic incident in his memoirs. JR jokes that he could make it where he realises something important. Uncle Charlie says that if there’s going to be any structure to it, JR knows what he must do. His father once came to Manhasset to talk to his mother. He came on the train and didn’t have a car. Uncle Charlie recounts the story of how he loaned him the 30 bucks he never saw again. He’d always wondered if underneath it all he was a good guy. JR asks him if he reminds him of his father. He tells him to lighten up on his drinking.

81–84: At a low rent chain restaurant near an active airport, JR is sitting reading making notes in a book he looks up to see The Voice. JR has made the trip to see him. It’s clear he’s still drinking when he orders a double scotch and insists JR has the same. Is The Voice really at base or has become, a really scary degenerate fucker? They’re going to eat over at Kathy’s, his new ‘poontang’ who has a twelve-year-old daughter — he jokes about whether that matters down in those parts. They drive in his piece of shit car. JR’s feet up are to the ankles in empty beer cans and pints in the footwell. His conversation is racist and confrontational. Especially about JR’s mother, who he professes to have loved so much. JR can’t believe what he’s hearing. Clearly an alcoholic he’s still saying he allows himself to enjoy a cocktail. They arrive at a not very nice shotgun shack where Kathy comes out on the porch, a poor southern painfully thin woman. Her daughter very plump. Kathy is white and the daughter biracial. Half ‘in the bag’, He introduces JR to Kathy who asks the eternal question about his name. He would rather be anywhere and anyone else at that moment.

85: Chatting to the daughter inside the house, she asks JR how you get to go to the places that are pictured in the multitude of jigsaws she’s completed and that line the walls. He advises her to do well at school. Do very well. Sometimes that’s all there is. He looks like he is going to burst into tears. The voice is staring at him unsteady. About to start. He turns. Picking on JR about his writing. He then ‘starts’ in the kitchen as the daughter gathers her puzzle up and leaves the room. Jr can hear the argument starting in the kitchen about the Voice’s mood swings. He’s become abusive. JR sees an old woman looking out of a back bedroom with terrified eyes. JR tells the Voice to shut the Fuck up and leave. He taunts JR that he’s just like him and shoves him one handed. JR catches his wrist and hits him with every ounce of his strength, dislocating his jaw and flooring him. Picking up the drink, JR gets down on his knees and pours it into the mouth of the choking half-conscious Voice. He picks the bleeding and now old man up by his shirtfront and yells at him, I’m not your son. Kathy has backed down. JR is exasperated. She can call the police when he starts trouble. Does she even know?

86: Blue Lights are sparkling through the trees as JR comes out on the main road holding the old man’s car keys, which he throws into the woods. A cop car comes out, The Voice slumped in the back of it. The Voice is carried away to God knows where. JR walks to the main road. Another cop car takes him to the airport. The cop apologises for his father. That’s not my father JR says. The cop says you don’t get to pick. Maybe. JR responds.

87 -89:JR waits at the airport, it’s after the last flight, thinking about everything. Arriving back at the beach, we see Uncle Charlie wading chest high with his drink looking back at Jr standing there oblivious. He’s clearly concerned and seems to be planning something.

We see Young JR surging through the sparkling water towards the happy floating men of the bar.

The Dickens. Uncle Charlie, back a work, a little grayer, a little slower. Mom is now settled and selling insurance. All JR’s stuff is there, a couple of suitcases, a duffel, the typewriter. Its time, he’s off to Manhattan. Bayard has a place. Uncle Charlie holds out his very distinctive Keychain, with the wings and book with the Cadillac keys and gives them to JR.

We see JR putting all his gear in the capacious trunk of the Chuck Berry Caddy. The Dickens sign sways over the door of the bar. Watching him leave are Bobo, Chief, the Priest. Everybody.

JR is driving, with the top down, Typewriter and gear piled in the back, sunglasses on, off into whatever will be.

THE END

A trailer for the movie:

Writing Exercise: I encourage you to read the script, but short of that, if you’ve seen the movie, go through this scene-by-scene breakdown. What stands out to you about it from a structural standpoint?

Major kudos to Ava Regal for doing this week’s scene-by-scene breakdown.

To download a PDF of the breakdown , go here.

I hope to see you in the RESPONSE section about this week’s script: The Tender Bar.