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Michelle Williams and Casey Affleck deal with terrible burdens in Manchester By the Sea |
Director: Kenneth Lonergan
Cast: Casey Affleck (Lee Chandler), Lucas Hedges (Patrick
Chandler), Michelle Williams (Randi), Kyle Chandler (Joe Chandler), Gretchen
Mol (Elisa Chandler), CJ Wilson (George), Tate Donovan (Hockey coach), Kara
Hayward (Silvie), Anna Baryshnikov (Sandy), Heather Burns (Jill), Matthew
Broderick (Jeffrey)
There are many films that front and centre the catharsis of
overcoming grief. You know the sort of thing: the feel-good story of someone dealing
with the impact of crushing events to emerge renewed and with a certain level
of acceptance for the hand that life has dealt them. It’s rare to have a film
that takes a very different approach – for it to tackle grief and the impact it
has as a never-ending burden on your life, like a companion that will stay with
you forever but which you must accept will colour every moment for the rest of
your life.
Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is a quiet, inexpressive
handyman in Boston who seems to be barely keeping under control a temper that
explodes in the odd unprovoked barfight. Content to let his life drift away in
a dead-end, poorly paid, job, Lee is summoned back to his family’s home in Manchester
by the Sea, a coastal town in Massachusetts, after the death of his brother Joe
(Kyle Chandler) from a heart condition. Much to his surprise, he discovers that
Joe has named him as the guardian of Joe’s teenage son Patrick (Lucas Hedges).
But Lee has no intention of remaining in this forced parental role – or of
staying in Manchester by the Sea, his former home until he suffered an
unbearably tragic loss for which he blames himself.
Manchester by the Sea
seems ripe for setting up as a conventional tale of grief. All the ingredients
are there: the man who is thrown together with a young teenager, the terrible
tragic background event that he can never forget, the bottled up emotions that
seem to be crying out for a big “cathartic” moment where all those emotions can
be let out, a possible father-son relationship developing that can lead to Lee
re-engaging fully with the world… It’s a testament the film’s courage that it avoids
nearly all of these completely. Instead it offers a picture of life’s tragedy
that feels human, studied, earned and above all real.
For starters, Lee is consumed with grief – and is unable to
move on from it. This becomes much easier for the viewer to understand once we
are introduced to the reason for his tragic mood halfway through – although hints
have been dropped in flashbacks that are brilliantly woven (seemingly at
random, but in fact with great thought and planning) throughout the film, where
he has a wife and three young children. Saying that, the horror of what
actually happened – and the gut wrenching sense of personal responsibility that
Lee feels – are truly chilling. Is it any wonder with all of this that Lee
can’t or won’t (or both) allow himself to move on? That he clearly believes grief is his
“sentence” for his “crime”, which has so shaped his entire life? No it really
isn’t.
Lonergan’s film (and his brilliant script, one of the
sharpest, tenderest and most humane modern film scripts you will read, with all
the depth of a fabulous novel) explores wonderfully the contours of this human
situation. There are no easy answers, no real relief and no simple emotional
release. Instead this film shows that grief and guilt – certainly on this scale
– never go away, that although you allow yourself moments of happiness, the
shadow of the past never really leaves.
This makes the story sound incredibly bleak, when in fact it
really isn’t. Among the many triumphs of Lonergan’s film is how funny this is.
This humour is not always black (though it is tinged in places) but comes from
Lonergan’s Mike Leigh or Alan Bennettish ability to neatly observe some of the
absurdities of human interaction and everyday conversation. He understands that
the mundanity of the everyday can carry huge emotional and comedic force for
people, because it stems from situations we can all (to certain degrees)
experience and understand. It’s those moments of recognition as Lee and Patrick
struggle to get on, or when Lee is brought low by sudden memories that really
speak to the viewer, which make this such a profound and often engaging viewing
experience. Not to mention that Lee’s often blunt plain speaking frequently
raises a chuckle, not least due to Patrick’s often exasperated plea as to why
he can’t be “normal”.
But then Lee isn’t normal – he’s carefully suppressed his
inner feelings as a protection measure to stop him from exploding in
self-destructive guilt. It’s a performance from Casey Affleck that might just
be one for the ages: a surly, buttoned-down man of low-key aggression and
impatience which covers a deep and abiding sense of guilt and shame that he
can’t seem to put behind him. He’s superb, and the performance is all the more
admirable for the bravery of how Affleck does not fall back on actorly tricks
and emoting. Instead his performance throbs with unspoken pain.
But then Affleck is one of several superb performances.
Lucas Hedges is a revelation as a son who can’t articulate his feelings about
his father’s death and his resentment and pain around it. Hedges and Affleck
spark off each other with great effect, with scenes that alternate between
hilarity and raw pain. Michelle Williams is also sublime in a carefully
underused part as Lee’s ex-wife. Williams shares one particular beautiful scene
with Affleck – one tinged with fabulous notes of sadness and regret – that is
nearly worth the price of admission alone. But no one puts a foot wrong here.
Lonergan’s film is a beautiful, heartfelt, funny and
intensely moving piece of cinema. Beautifully filmed, with a sublime score
(part classics, part new compositions by Lesley Barber) it never lies to the
audience, never sentimentalises, but leaves you moved and enthralled. It’s so
rare to see a film that feels so very true
to the difficulties and complexities of real life. A great film.
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