Named after a Simon and Garfunkel song, The Only Living Boy in New York isn’t shy about being a movie that leeches from other, better pieces of art. This is confirmed during Jeff Bridges’s opening voice-over, which name-drops Yeats and Lou Reed; the movie goes on to reference The Graduate, Bob Dylan’s “Visions of Johanna,” J.D. Salinger, and every Woody Allen film set in Manhattan—all in service of a dippy story about a young white guy who’s feeling kinda angsty about all of this “life” stuff.
Thomas (Callum Turner) has been friend-zoned by Mimi (Kiersey Clemons); he wants to be a writer but his wealthy book-publisher dad (Pierce Brosnan) is only marginally encouraging. When Thomas spies dad cheating on his Klonopin-chomping mom (Cynthia Nixon) with the mysterious Johanna (Kate Beckinsale), he unloads his frustrations onto his new neighbor (Bridges), who’s obviously a Famous Writer because he drinks red wine in the afternoon.