Being Flynn

Being Flynn (2012) is a drama directed by Paul Weitz, adapted from Nick Flynn's memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City — watch it online on iFILM. Paul Dano plays Nick, a young man working night shifts at a Boston homeless shelter. Robert De Niro plays his father Jonathan, a self-described literary genius with a rap sheet, no published work, and a son he abandoned two decades ago.

Then Jonathan loses his apartment and turns up at Nick's shelter as a client. Julianne Moore plays the mother caught between them, present mostly through memory. The film stays close to the original memoir's fractured structure: Nick's narration circles the question of whether a son can choose not to become his father, while Jonathan keeps insisting the whole thing is material for his novel.

De Niro plays Jonathan without the usual theatrics — quieter and therefore more corrosive. The film earns its emotional weight because it refuses to resolve the father into either villain or victim. Stream Being Flynn (2012) online on iFILM.