Manchester by the Sea
Director: Kenneth Lonergan
Stars: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler
Duration: 137 mins
Class: 12
KRS Releasing Ltd
Writer / director (and sometime actor) Kenneth Lonergan is hardly prolific. Manchester by the Sea is only his third film behind the camera in 16 years (after the quiet and uplifting You Can Count on Me and the little-seen Margaret). This is a crying shame, for his piercing ability to look into the minds and souls of ordinary people facing adversity makes for a sobering, refreshing and thought-provoking change to the barrage of CG-bloated, action-packed product that, while oftentimes entertaining in and of itself, often overwhelms the market. It is heartening that Manchester by the Sea is getting so much love and respect on the critical and awards circuit.
Casey Affleck stars as Lee Chandler, stuck in a dead-end job as a janitor and with no social life to speak of. On hearing the news that his older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) has passed away one icy morning, he reluctantly returns to his hometown he left years before. Lee is dismayed to learn he has been named guardian of his nephew Patrick, a situation that will force him to stay in town – and confront the devastating tragedy that forced him to leave years before.
Manchester by the Sea takes an uncompromising look at the most agonising effects of grief and how it affects those carrying it. We first meet Lee as he is carrying out his daily duties – dealing with residents’ complaints in a taciturn, sometimes boorish manner.
A sobering, refreshing and thought-provoking change
This is a man who clearly keeps himself to himself, and is bottling up lots of rage inside him – as witnessed by his penchant to start bar-fights at the slightest provocation. Yes, he clearly was not always like this, as the various flashbacks to earlier happier times in his life can testify. Fishing trips with the younger Patrick and Joe; and crucially, snippets of family life with his wife Randi (Michelle Williams) and two young daughters. Yet something clearly happened along the way to create the brittle, broken man Lee has become.
Finally, we learn what it is that shattered Lee’s life; this is revealed in a way that underscores Lonergan’s brilliance in keeping things understated it with nary any signs of histrionics or sensationalism and is all the more horrifyingly powerful it.
Affleck has already won numerous accolades for his unflinchingly real performance as Lee, and deservedly so. Despite being consistently good in his work, he has spent much of his career in older brother Ben’s shadow. Yet, he absolutely shines here, not so much performing as embodying the role, both physically – he seems to be permanently sunk into himself, as though desperately protecting himself from any further pain – and emotionally, as he charts Lee’s painful course on a lifetime journey of sadness.
Affleck offers some emotionally hard-hitting moments, most memorably when the extent of his responsibility in the events that so dramatically changed his life becomes clear to him. He wants to be punished, but he can’t and so he wears his punishment like an albatross around his neck. You wish wholeheartedly for him to seize the second chance at life offered by his nephew, because he is ultimately a decent man.
Michelle Williams astonishes in a part that gives her what seem like mere minutes of screen time – and is note perfect, as she segues from the happily-married mother-of-two to the woman who has managed more successfully to pick up the pieces of her broken marriage to Lee. In the process, she plays one of the most heart-breaking scenes I have seen in a while.
Completing the triad of great performances headlining the movie is Lucas Hedges as Patrick, who initially seems pretty unperturbed by his father’s death – or his absent mother’s sudden re-entry into his life – flitting between two girlfriends and playing in his band. Yet, his niggling obsession about Joe’s burial and an anxiety attack brought on by a frozen chicken betray this young man’s internal turmoil. Hedges and Affleck share a natural chemistry – the uncle-nephew dynamic natural and unforced and a believable catalyst for change for the two of them.
But it’s not all gloom. Despite Lonergan’s refusing to offer any soothing answers – life doesn’t, after all – there is something inspirational in Lee’s ability to find it within himself to carry on despite all he has gone through. Moreover, Lonergan’s dialogue includes some pretty sharp humour to counteract the sad, moving and heartfelt story.