Robert De Niro does an excellent job playing a down-and-out writer turned homeless by an unfortunate sequence of events.

There really are only two significant characters in this story, Jonathan Flynn (Robert De Niro) and his son, Nick Flynn (Paul Dano). Nick is shocked when his eccentric father, a writer, who abandoned Nick and his mother when he was young, suddenly reaches out to him seemingly out of the blue – of all things, to help him move.

We see Jon descend into homelessness. Nick, burdened by the loss of his mother to suicide, trying to find himself, and getting a relationship going, is not much interested in his father.

But he can’t quite avoid him, either.

Being Flynn is absolutely carried by the two main actors. It’s a slow, plodding, somewhat boring story that really is depressing and demoralizing. There is very little in this movie that is uplifting, even though the end has hints of it. I watched all the way through, but it took an effort. The excellent acting of De Niro – as always – helped. He carried this movie.

Rating: **