The Tender Bar isn’t a typical slice of life/coming-of-age film. It doesn’t try to emotionally manipulate its audience with shocking character deaths or overly saccharine moments where two people find common ground. Rather, it’s an adaptation of a memoir that merely looks to highlight that, at one time, people could be flawed but still inherently good. That a place like a bar was as much about comradery and, strangely, family than it was about indulging one’s vices.