Review: Manchester By the Sea

Casey Affleck has dotted the edges of many films for nearly three decades now, sometimes stealing a scene with a smart-alecky wisecrack. Yet every so often, and especially in recent years in films like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Ain't Them Bodies Saints, Affleck has shown himself capable of something special, of digging into reserves of subtle yet powerful emotions. He lays himself particularly bare in Manchester By the Sea by delivering a devastatingly implosive portrayal of a man so immersed in his personal pain that there may be no way out.

On paper, Manchester By the Sea sounds like a combination of two themes commonly found in Hollywood's assembly line: people felled by loss propelled into healing by meeting another grieving soul or by the literal personifications of Love, Time and Death (as in the recent Collateral Beauty), and people in arrested development are forced into adulthood by being thrust into the role of parental figure (Adam Sandler in Big Daddy or Omar Sy in the French comedy-drama Demain Tout Commence). And, yes, Manchester By the Sea traffics in these templates, even utilising flashbacks as a narrative tool and classical music to cushion its scenes.

Yet the film draws something new and operatic out of the familiar precisely because Manchester By the Sea derives from writer-director Kenneth Lonergan, who revels in the mess of life and human emotions and connections. The film's central figure is Bostonian Lee Chandler (Affleck), and the opening montage observes him as he joylessly performs his job as a janitor and handyman - shoveling snow, unclogging toilets, fixing showers. He's closed off, both averse to and incapable of small talk, and prone to throw a punch or two even when unprovoked. Even in these initial moments, Affleck conveys the sense that Lee has demons he can't quite shake with the drudgery of work or the anaesthesia of drink.

One day, he receives a call from George (C.J. Wilson), a longtime family friend, to tell him that his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) has had a heart attack. By the time he reaches the hospital, Joe has already passed and Lee now has to deal with not only the ensuing funeral arrangements by with the news that Joe has named him guardian to his 16-year-old-nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges). "I'm just the back up," Lee protests to the lawyer, who assures him that this was Joe's wish and that Joe had even made financial arrangements to ensure that there would be no issues with Lee moving from Quincy back to his Manchester-by-the-Sea hometown. Lonergan soon reveals, about an hour into the film, the exact source of Lee's misgivings, the disclosure hitting like a gut punch. To call the scene harrowing is an understatement.

Manchester By the Sea may contain one of the most depressing tales in recent memory, yet at no point does it feel oppressive. In fact, it often resembles a farce of human error and behaviour: Lee's impassivity as he's handled with careful words of comfort by the doctor and nurses who attended to Joe; George and his wife shouting across the room to each other during Joe's funeral reception; the torrential crescendos of the conversations punctuated by laughter; Patrick's trauma as he learns his father's body will have to be kept in a freezer until the ground is soft enough for the burial.

Lonergan imposes a jagged rhythm upon the film that initially unsettles but ultimately absorbs. Past and present interrupt and overlap and, flashbacks are often indiscernible from what is happening in the now, there are stretches where everything is expressed via glances, mostly downcast. "I have nothing big to say," ex-wife Randi (an exquisite Michelle Williams) tells Lee when they run into one another. Their exchange - "You can't just die." "There's nothing there." - perfectly encapsulates how Manchester By the Sea wrenches so much from so little and how sublime eloquence can be found in almost symphonic inarticulation.

Manchester By the Sea

Directed by: Kenneth Lonergan

Written by: Kenneth Lonergan

Starring: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, Gretchen Mol, Lucas Hedges, C.J. Wilson, Tate Donovan, Matthew Broderick, Heather Burns