Manchester by The Sea
Starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Lucas Hedges, Kyle Chandler
[rating: 4/5]
Reviewed by Michael Dalton
“That’s The Lee Chandler?” someone remarks early on in Manchester by The Sea, Kenneth Lonergan’s new film. It’s said in such a way we might imagine a neighbourhood ghoul, a phantom even (imagine Boo Radley hiding in plain sight) and it lingers eerily over this cold film, a startling emotional exploration of bruised existence, of bereavement, and of responsibility. Casey Affleck, who walks the lonely walk here as few others could, plays the man in question. When we first meet him, he’s fixing toilets and showers in a freezing cold suburb of Boston. He’s abused, ignored, and even propositioned. Whether he’s getting loaded in a bar and beating onlookers for staring (the only time he seems truly alive) or alone in his basement flat, he is closed off. Somewhere in his past, Something Happened and he’s now a shell of what he was. Lonergan’s direction, as was evident in his two other films, You Can Count on Me and Margaret, is all about being, and about how we carry our experiences with us always. I get the distinct impression he instructs his actors in the same way Woody Allen does. He stands back and allows them to ease themselves into the scene. In Manchester by the Sea, there are no tricks, no grandstanding, no high notes, and little hysteria. In this deeply private film, Lonergan reminds us that we can know what people are feeling but we can never know how they’re feeling it.
The story, such as it is, sounds simple on paper. A man dies and he leaves his brother to be his only son’s guardian. But that brother is of course in no shape to accept the responsibility. I won’t detail here what it is that haunts Lee but it would, it would haunt anyone until the end of their days. So he reluctantly returns home and attempts to take care of the boy, Patrick (Lucas Hedges). He’s sixteen, in a band, has two girlfriends, and has absolutely no intention of returning to Boston with his uncle. He even tries to set him up with the single mother of one of his girlfriends. Living with his mother (Gretchen Mol), once an alcoholic and now recovered and married to a devoutly religious man (a creepy Matthew Broderick) is an avenue Patrick doesn’t care to travel down. All roads lead back to Lee who knows he’s out of his depth.
This is a film and a half, full of investigative quality into the human spirit and rife with awkward moments that make you laugh despite the reverence. In one scene, following a tragedy, two medics bungle putting a gurney into the back of an ambulance. They struggle while the patient is having a coughing fit. It borders on farce and you’ll find yourself grinning in spite of it (it functions like a respite from the film’s darkness). But essentially, Lonergan follows the adventures of Lee and Patrick. The younger one’s curious reaction to his father’s death is a case in point but again, Lonergan is after realism. Is the boy just plain cold or incapable of absorbing the loss or just young? The film has an beautiful sense of rhythm, uniquely so. Half of the story is told through flashbacks and since Lonergan makes no effort to give them a signature, it’s up to us to recognise them. At the beginning of the film Lee is going about his business when word comes through that his brother Joe (an excellent Kyle Chandler) has gone into cardiac arrest and by the time Lee arrives, his brother is dead but then we jump to a scene where Joe is having his medical condition discussed. Lonergan is all about creating a tapestry of life in all its honesty, humour, and pain. Scene by scene, he pushes the pieces into place. Manchester by The Seapresents a portrait you won’t forget.
