If you can tolerate the studied ethereality of Paul Dano, you may consider this tale of dashed dreams a real return to form for writer-director Paul Weitz (About a Boy). Certainly it gives Robert De Niro his juiciest part in many years: as the dissolute Jonathan Flynn, who considers himself the greatest writer since Mark Twain and J.D. Salinger, he rants and raves in high style (he even drives a taxi). Eventually he winds up at the doorstep of a homeless shelter where the son he deserted long ago (Dano) has begun to find fitful meaning in life through caring for others, not to mention good sex with a generous but tough-minded colleague (Olivia Thirlby). Weitz adapted Nick Flynn’s memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, the title of which gives a much better idea of the movie’s resolute bitterness. With Julianne Moore and Lili Taylor.