Based on a true story: Nick Flynn (Paul Dano) is reacquainted with his father after 18 years of separation when his father Jonathan (Robert De Niro) checks into the homeless shelter where Nick works. A self-proclaimed novelist and con man, Jonathan struggles with an alcohol addiction while his son struggles to avoid following in his father's footsteps. Also with Julianne Moore, Olivia Thirlby, Eddie Rouse and Lili Taylor. Directed by Paul Weitz. [1:42]

SEX/NUDITY 7 - A man is seen thrusting on top of a woman, the man blinks and the woman turns into a haggardly looking woman who flips the man on his back and mounts him while thrusting; we see a portion of the man's bare chest and the woman's bra.
► A young man and a young woman are seen engaged in sex; they both appear fully clothed and covered by blankets, and we see the young woman's legs under the blankets around the young man's waist and hear the young man panting sexually.
► On multiple occasions we see men in a locker room and we see the men's bare chests and backs, we see the bare buttocks of multiple men and the nude profile of one man, including a portion of his bare genitals. A man is bathing in a tin tub in the middle of a living room as his son enters the room; the man stands up, we see his bare buttocks and it is implied that the young man sees the man's bare genitals. A young man's narration explains that a man refused to put his clothes on and the man is seen wrapped in a sheet standing in the middle of a room.
► A young man and a young woman are implied to be having sex; they pull clothing off one another (no nudity is visible; we see the young woman in a tank top and boy-short style underwear) and we later see the young man lying in bed fully clothed as he asks the young woman to "come back to bed." A young man and a young woman are seen lying side by side in bed, fully clothed. A young man kisses a young woman, and then kisses her hand.
► In a crowd of men, a man shouts a crude remark about wishing he had masturbated rather than having a young man as his son. A young woman tells a young man that she had enjoyed sleeping with him.

VIOLENCE/GORE 6 - A woman takes a handful of pills and moments later we see her soaking wet and she narrates a letter as she writes that she had tried to throw herself into the ocean; the woman takes a gun from a closet and her teenage son discovers her, face-down on a bed and it is implied that she committed suicide (no blood is visible). As a young man narrates that a man had fallen out of bed and the bed then fell on top of the man, we see the young man bandaging the man's head (blood is visible on a cut on the man's head and on his shirt) while explaining that since the man had been drinking his blood was thin and "ran quickly." A young man slams his head into a mirror, we see a shatter pattern on the mirror and the young man is later seen with a bandage over a small cut on his forehead.
► A man watches in the distance as four young men punch, kick and beat with metal poles a man sitting on a chair. A young man experiences a vision of a young man lying in a doorway of a building, dead; a small amount of blood is visible on the young man's jacket as the first young man narrates that a young man had been stabbed to death in a doorway. Three men slowly approach a man and we later see the man's face beaten, two of his teeth are chipped, cuts cover his face and a small amount of blood is seen on his torn coat. A man punches a young man in the face, and the young man spins around from the impact; we later see a young woman tending to the young man, telling him that he will have "a shiner" from the punch. A man shouts and throws another man against a wall, coming very close to his face. As a woman narrates to a young man, we see three men holding a man by his ankles off a four-story building and the woman warns the man's son that his father is in danger. A man attempts to steal a bag out from under the head of a sleeping man; the sleeping man wakes up and shouts, and uses the bag to hit the thief, who quickly runs away. A man with a bat with a nail sticking out of it angrily beats on a door, and he then charges through the door pushing two other men from the doorway; we hear a crash followed by shouting and it is implied that the man is using the bat to beat up musical instruments and people (unseen). A man screams and struggles to push past two men.
► A man shows a young man (his son) a bat with nails in the side, he shakes the bat and crudely tells the young man that he will shove the bat inside a man's buttocks and rip out his intestines. A man shakes a baseball bat with two nails sticking out of it at a man and a woman riding in the back of a cab, saying that he will use the bat to stick down someone's throat and "rip out their jugular" if a person were to "mess" with him. A man angrily beats on the floor of his apartment with a bat with two nails sticking out of it.
► A young man tends to a small bloody cut on a man's leg. A man stands in a puddle of urine as a young man (the man's son) narrates that the man does not even realize he is standing in a puddle of urine. A man stands in front of young man, asks him for a new pair of pants, saying that his were stained and we see a large urine stain growing on the man's pants. We see lice crawling on a man, and he pulls a louse from his hair and smashes it in his fingers as a young man stands before him, offering to de-louse him.
► A young man shouts angrily at his father; his father shouts back and we soon hear a room filled with men shouting at one another until the young man storms away. A man stands in the middle of a room, shouting into the air; a young man (his son) enters the room and the man continues shouting. A man shouts angrily at his young adult son. A man shows a boy photographs of dead bodies; the man explains that bodies burn very quickly when a woman (the boy's mother) walks in and shouts at the man, telling him to put away a gun and stop showing the boy the photographs. A man drunkenly rants about girls being raped by "pederast priests." A man drunkenly rants to his young adult son that the young man and his mother were in danger of being killed by a drug kingpin if the man had not gone to prison as a cover-up.
► A man narrates to the screen that he had been attacked by a man with a gun, he stole the man's gun and then shot the gunman three times, causing him to have to "disappear" for awhile; a young man's voiceover explains that the man had been imprisoned. A young man explains to a man (his father) that the young man's mother had committed suicide. On multiple occasions we hear a young man reference how his mother had died, implying that she had committed suicide. A young man and his father discuss the young man's mother's suicide; the man explains that he believes the woman had killed herself because she was weak. A man's voiceover narrates that he hears stories of people being shot "every night." A man tells a young man (his son) that he had been mugged by drug addicts in the past. A woman tells her young son that his father is in prison after stealing and passing bad checks. Throughout the movie a man refers to having been in prison, frequently saying that he had been in "federal prison." A young man's voiceover narrates that a man is out in the cold; "hypothermia cold." A young man says that his mother is dead and his father has been "missing" for 18 years. A woman dramatically tells her young son that if his father does not appear she will "kill him." A man dramatically tells a young man (his son) to come quickly because the man has a "shotgun waiting" at the door.
► A man slowly falls asleep while driving (it is implied that he is inebriated) and he awakens when he crashes into something and we hear the man narrate that he was arrested and his license was seized after hitting "something or someone."
► A woman smacks her young son on the behind after he is escorted to the door by a police officer. A young woman throws multiple paperback books at a young man; he is not harmed. Two men pat-down a group of men entering a building, and one man shouts to the crowd, "No bottles, no weapons!"

LANGUAGE 10 - About 53 F-words and its derivatives, 13 sexual references, 11 scatological terms, 13 anatomical terms, 6 derogatory terms for homosexuals, 7 mild obscenities, name-calling (black pot head, nightmare, racist homophobe, crazy, scum sucking, completely inadequate as a human being, moron, ape, unluckiest man I know, particularly prone to madness, deadbeat pan handlers, pederast, losers in life's great game, scumbags, drunken jack in the box, cabroni, father murderer, freakin' psycho, ghoul, cretins), exclamations (shut up), 1 religious profanity, 6 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - A young man and a man snort cocaine (the young man appears very intoxicated), three men smoke crack, a man tells a young man not to smoke crack and that he had "been on the pipe for three days straight," a young man takes a crack pipe and smokes heavily and we later see him waking up from a stupor in a stairwell, a young man's narration explains that a woman had been a "crack head" and would eventually go back to using crack, we hear people discussing "their addiction" during an AA meeting and a man narrates that he was 11 years old the first time he got high and another man narrates that he had set his own hand on fire in order to get a prescription for morphine, a young man offers a young woman "some blow" and she turns him down, and a young woman tells a young man that her brother had "an addiction" (implied to be to drugs) and she implies that he had died due to his drug addiction. Throughout the movie we frequently see a man drinking alcohol to the point of inebriation, a man drinks before driving, a man drinks liquor directly from a bottle, a man is implied to be drunk while driving when he crashes his car (a voice over explains that the police found him and "took his license" after he hit "something or someone"), a young man is seen drinking on multiple occasions, and a young man's narration explains that "drunks were drunker." A young woman throws a cigarette butt at a young man.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Drug and alcohol addiction, suicide, loss of a parent, abandonment issues, denial, substance abuse, AA, homelessness, disappointment, overcoming guilt.

MESSAGE - Having a family member with an addiction is very difficult.