Manchester by the Sea

Writer-director Kenneth Lonergan has only three films under his belt, with the other two being 2000's You Can Count on Me and 2011's criminally underappreciated Margaret.  All of his films are smart, honest looks at personal loss, and the effect it has on people, but Manchester by the Sea may be his best attempt yet.  Anchored by a sure-to-be-remembered performance by Casey Affleck, this is a film that works both as a devastating human drama, as well as a dry and often very droll comedy. 

At its heart, the film is about forgiveness.  It covers both sides, dealing with forgiving yourself as well as others.  It's a movie about guarded characters, who keep to themselves in a tight-knit community where everyone pretty much knows everyone else's secrets.  It's also a movie about parenting and taking responsibility.  But Lonergan finds a way to not only make these ideas seem fresh again, but to also add his own personal spin.  He's a writer and filmmaker who can bring out incredible emotion (the fact that all of his films have contained the themes of death and personal tragedy can tell you that much), but can also make you laugh harder than at any over-hyped Hollywood comedy.  He knows how to balance the pain and joy in his films, and always gives his audience a memorable experience.  But his true secret weapon this time is Casey Affleck, delivering some of the best work of his career.

Affleck is Lee Chandler, a closed off loner who works as a janitor for an apartment complex, and lives in a shabby Boston apartment.  He's mostly silent, though he's not against mouthing off at some of the tenants he works for if they get on his nerves.  We learn early on that Lee's older brother, Joe (played in flashbacks by Kyle Chandler), suffered from a heart condition most of his life that has recently killed him.  Now, Lee has been unexpectedly tasked with the responsibility of raising Joe's teenaged son, Patrick (Lucas Hedges from Moonrise Kingdom).  Lee seems to be the only option, as Patrick's mother (Gretchen Moll) is a drug addict who's been out of the family for years.  However, not only is Lee not in the place in his current life to raise a child, but he has more than a few secrets of his own in his past.

It's clear that Lee has affection for Patrick, as we witness in the film's opening scene - a flashback of the two together on a boat when Patrick was a boy.  But he is also sullen, hard drinking, frequently depressed, and often gets in fights with random strangers when he goes out to the bar.  He has an ex-wife (Michelle Williams) whom he seems to have a particularly stormy past with over something that happened a long time ago.  And when he returns to his hometown of Manchester, people frequently stare and whisper.  When we do finally learn the truth behind Lee's past, it is truly one of the most heartbreaking and terrifying scenes of any film you're likely to see this year.  Now that Lee has his brother's son in his life and is responsible for him, he must not only confront his past demons, but learn to get over them so he can be something resembling a proper father.

Manchester by the Sea is a movie that takes its time, and keeps certain things hidden from us.  We never exactly learn the reason why Joe entrusted Patrick to Lee, and the reveal of Lee's past is in no rush to come forth.  But this is not a movie that toys with its audience.  Lonergan instead lets us grow to be involved with these people and their world, and the end result is a movie that truly makes us feel for everyone involved in the story.  There is an honesty to the film in that it is not built so much around Lee and Patrick having staged life-changing conversations, but rather around the fact that Lee must now revolve his life around driving Patrick about to different places as part of his active social life, such as a garage rock band, hockey practice, and two different girlfriends.  These are both men in grieving, and they choose to handle it in different ways.  Lee retreats within himself, while Patrick tries to keep himself as busy as possible. 

This can often be a heart wrenching and emotional drama, but Lonergan again adds an unexpected layer of humor to the story.  Everybody is allowed to at least have some kind of dry, sarcastic wit that seems appropriate sometimes when dealing with the issues these characters are.  Sometimes the humor is small, such as the way Lee and Patrick wander aimlessly around while having a conversation, trying to remember where Lee parked the car.  And sometimes, it's flat out hilarious in its dialogue.  Lonergan started out as a playwright, and his ear for dialogue is on display here, as sometimes his humor isn't evident right away.  You have to stop and think about what the characters have just said.  This alone is a rarity in movies today, but it's certainly a welcome change of pace from what we usually get.

This is a film of tremendous emotion, and it's not always the characters who are doing the emoting.  The music score, using select pieces of classical, soul and rock often adds to the emotion of the scene without spelling out exactly how the audience is supposed to be feeling.  In his portrayal of Lee, Casey Affleck often has to be guarded and sullen, but he still manages to bring out the emotion in his performance when it is necessary, without going into melodrama.  He often comes across as if he doesn't know how to react and feel, which is exactly the way the character should be.  As Patrick, Hedges has to be torn between his grief, and wanting to lead a normal life.  The way the two performances play off of each other, and the relationship that grows between them is a small cinematic miracle.  You can never take your eyes off of them, and the emotions they bring are some of the most memorable scenes at the movies this year.

Manchester by the Sea is a movie that's earned a lot of hype from film festivals, and is a rare instance where it deserves each and every one.  This is one of the finer films of 2016, and hopefully will get the honors it deserves at Award Time early next year.  After seeing this, you kind of want Lonergan to make movies more often, but at the same time, you don't want him to turn into an assembly line filmmaker, just pushing out one film after another.  At the rate he's going, he can take all the time he wants to.

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