Manchester By The Sea

December 18, 2016

Masterful ‘Manchester by the Sea’ Is the Best Movie of the Year

By Rex Reed • 11/16/16 1:29pm

Casey Affleck in Manchester by the Sea. Claire Folger/Amazon Studios/Roadside Attractions

Excelsior!

They saved the best for last. As a desultory and downright depressing year in movies (and everything else) crawls to a welcome finale, along comes an exemplary film of such exceptional wisdom, beauty, clarity, sensitivity and emotional depth that I had to rub my eyes to believe it. Manchester by the Sea, writer-director Kenneth Lonergan’s third film in 16 years (he takes his time to get it right), is a triumphant exploration of the way real people think and feel about grief, loss, love and survival that will stick in your gut and cling to your heart long after the final frame fades to black. A film festival favorite earlier this year in Sundance, Telluride, Toronto, London, Rome and Rio de Janeiro, it has revived my faith in movies and the rare people who still know how to make them.

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA★★★★
(4/4 stars)

Written and directed by: Kenneth Lonergan
Starring: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams and Kyle Chandler
Running time: 137 mins.

This meticulous study of the ways a New England blue-collar Irish Catholic family in crisis mode involuntarily copes with death and responsibility is unlike any other film this year. Casey Affleck, fast developing as an actor who equals the stature of his brother Ben, gives a quietly devastating performance as Lee Chandler, a beleaguered apartment-building janitor in a Boston suburb. Living in a tiny, cluttered basement room, exhausted and despondent, there’s an obvious reason why he has become one of life’s marginalized discards, but it takes a long time for Lonergan to reveal the root of his sadness. Shoveling snow, plumbing drains and trying to ignore the tenants’ constant complaints, he’s overworked, underpaid, angry at the world and ready to punch out anybody in his local bar who looks at him the wrong way. With a secret past and no future, he’s unable to take care of himself, much less any other dependant, so when his older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) dies of a congenital heart condition, leaving his son without supervision or security and naming Lee in his will as the boy’s legal guardian, a man who has given up on the world suddenly finds himself reluctantly straddled with the unwelcome responsibility of taking care of his 16-year-old nephew Patrick (a career-making performance by the wonderful young actor Lucas Hedges). The messy domestic drama of a decent but dysfunctional family is just beginning.

Returning to his hometown of Manchester, a coastal Massachusetts village where he once lived a normal existence with a devoted family, Lee is confronted with memories of the past, both painful and happy. In flashbacks, as Lonergan gradually connects stray pieces of the puzzle, we learn that Lee’s wife Randi (another ravishingly honest, heartfelt performance by Michelle Williams) left him after their house caught fire and took the lives of their two daughters because he forgot to put a screen in front of the fireplace when he was out buying beer. We also watch Patrick’s refusal to move to Boston with an uncle he hardly knows and give up his high school friends, his soccer team, his rock band and his popularity with girls. As tension builds, all fears of clichés vanish. There are no stereotypes here. Lee is a burned-out loser, but he hides the heart of a sensitive man who wants to do the right thing and doesn’t know how. Patrick is going the awkwardness of adolescence, but he’s no teenage slug. It’s wrenching to observe the values of a boy too young for a driver’s license, sensitive, witty and highly intelligent enough to cope with his father’s death and the challenging alternative of living with a neurotic, estranged mother (Gretchen Mol) who lives in Connecticut with her emotionally blocked and religiously obsessed second husband (Matthew Broderick). By the time this seamless movie stumbles through all of the wrenching details, you feel like you know everyone in the town of Manchester by the sea as old friends with problems just like your own.

This is haunting, life-affirming filmmaking you will not forget. The details, the observations, the nuances, the revelations—they all add up to a masterful narrative structure and a beautifully textured reality I cannot praise highly enough. It’s not a film about plot twists, empty-headed computer-generated images or action sequences. As a great picture of people trying to help each other without means, maturity or experience, it’s about feelings and subtle emotions in the lives of people whose lives are disrupted before they are even fully developed. It’s about how a man deals with grief, how a boy deals with hope, and how the two of them finally find each other through trust, pain and love. Manchester by the Sea is the best movie of the year.

December 18, 2016

Saw this last night was really good. Way better than Rouge One. It is rated R. Lots of bad language and sexual situations. Great movie though.

January 26, 2017

HELL BURNS

The THEOLOGY OF THE BODY & MEDIA LITERACY blog of Sr. Helena Burns, fsp, media nun.

December 18, 2016

MOVIES: "MANCHESTER BY THE SEA"

DON'T WATCH ANY TRAILERS!
YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING BEFOREHAND.

Kenneth Lonergan, writer-director of the Oscar-buzzy, Amazon Studios' "Manchester By the Sea," is a playwright, and his films reflect that: minute detail to human discourse and a wallowing in emotionally-charged depths. Lonergan's mother is Jewish and his father is Irish--and I'm going to assume he was brought up Irish-Catholic because MBS really nails that milieu. Although from New York City, Lonergan wholeheartedly enters the Boston experience (as do the actors with their mostly accurate Boston accents, inflections and attitudes). Michelle Williams, in particular, grasps the cadence and projects the air of a native--consummate actress that she is.

FULL OF THE BOSTON BAKED BEANS

Why dwell on the writer-director? Because the nature of this still, little, indie-feeling tragicomedy points back to the writer at all moments. We're not used to such exposed, realistic dialogue--not delivered in hyper-reality or with perfectly polished forethought--where people constantly talk through each other and cut each other's sentences off. Nor are we used to this true-to-life, regional Bostonspeak (phrases like "skip it," "wicked retahdid," and "f***ing morons" constantly bandied about). There is a very distinctive way that people joke around in Boston, especially guys when they get together, and MBS puts it on full--but naturalistic--display. There's a certain Boston look in the eye, carriage, a certain set of face that shines through with flying colors here. And now, the story.

Lee (Casey Affleck) is a janitor in Boston. He's asocial and shut down. (People who know nothing about the story are better off, as his backstory is oh-so-gradually revealed through constant and seamless flashbacks.) There is an underlying hilarity to everything this thinly-but-well-drawn character says or does, even though we don't know why he is the way he is yet. This is great, lean writing and acting. My guess is the first scenes were actually shot first because it takes a while for the pace to materialize and it's a mite too slow and staring in the beginning.

MYSTERIES

We begin to piece together that Lee and his brother, Joe (a winning Kyle Chandler), grew up in Manchester By the Sea, a coastal town about 30 miles north of Boston. They spent significant time together on a fishing boat, and we see Lee messing around with Joe's son, Patrick, between whom there is obvious affection. So what changed it all? All I'm going to say is that Joe had a bad heart, and tragedy ensues. Lee is called back to Manchester to be his nephew's legal guardian. But why did Lee leave in the first place? Why is he now so different from the lovable goofball we saw on the boat? Where are the women (are there any wives or mothers or girlfriends in Lee or Joe's lives)? Why did Joe choose Lee to look after his son?

THIS IS LIFE. THIS IS DEATH.

Patrick's life is in instant upheaval, needless to say. But, like so many Millennials/Gen Z-ers today who carry heavy burdens, he keeps it all together on the outside, hardly showing any grief. Yet when something normal, natural and human touches him, it's psychologized, it's "wrong," it can't be owned or felt or lived, it must be distanced, categorized, controlled and manipulated. He's on two sports teams, has two girlfriends and is in a band. Patrick is played by the seasoned Lucas Hedges (also from NYC, he hails from a grand old Christian family and more recently an arts family. Lucas is clearly enjoying himself in this role for which he is more than suited). Patrick carries himself with the air of an aristocrat or an operator or just a quintessential entitled young American. Any which way, he's going to be fine. It's Lee we're worried about. Now that he's back in Manchester, people gawk and whisper. He never wanted to come back. He's forced to face old ghosts.

MBS is a story about life's worst tragedies and death hanging over everything. Lee sometimes drinks and fights away his sorrows. We are laughing constantly at the humor in just about every scene, despite the ever-present Cross. Often, our characters even appreciate the humor with us. But it's easier for us to observe than for them to endure. I also cried several times as did my packed theater.

There were a few false notes of reactions, or rather non-reactions. Even though the grief was stuffed down, I found myself thinking a few times: no one would say that, act like that, react like that (including minor characters).

TEEN SEX IN THE AGE OF THE HOLLOW MAN

My one grievance with the film is the persistently cavalier attitude toward teenage sex (realistic as that may be)."'Cuz no one's getting hurt, right? 'Cuz the body and sex are meaningless, right? And we'd better establish that in our tender years, right?" The adults are such a failure here, including the aged adults in my theater, whom, I venture, for the most part did NOT treat sex this way as youths. "But we've gotta be hip and yuk it up, right? And condoms solve all sexual and relationship problems, right? And no one will ever, ever, ever get pregnant if you use condoms, right? 'Cuz times have changed and this is how it is now and we just have to accept it 'cuz no harm is being done and we were silly NOT to have random sex in our bedrooms at home when we were teens and the kids are just having fun and it's just so funny, right?" We have really, really, really failed young people. THEOLOGY. OF. THE. BODY.

GRATEFUL

The soundtrack choices are unique. Lots of classical music, opera, chamber music and a few sung jazz pieces. But it works.

In the end, the actors are not being precious and precocious and the film is not "insisting upon itself." You will enter the film without realizing it and find it hard to get out of it when the credits roll, but you will be thankful for the continuum of family in your life, such as they are.

OTHER STUFF:

--There could easily have been many more F-bombs, but they were judiciously placed.

--Casey is great. I heard it stated recently: "Ben (Affleck) is a movie star. Casey is an actor." He has that unnerving looking straight past the camera and not blinking mojo--felt keenly in a soap-opera-close-up-no-quick-cut-aways film like MBS.

--Lee was unhappy. Miserable. But still alive. That's heroism.

--Sooooo Boston: driving angry, mumbling and talking in bunches, honed brevity of speech and interactions when the occasion is momentous and calls for more, overreacting to every little thing, talking too loudly, dropping the "g" on every "ing" word....

--Dear People Behind Me in Theater Who Think Movie-Going Is a Time for Catching Up with Friends,
Go. To. A. Coffee. Shop. Silence during contemplative movies is for just that: CONTEMPLATION. Stop talking and let the film sink into your soul instead of slipping off the surface of your contact lenses.
(We need silent theaters like silent cars on commuter trains.)

--The (non-graphic) teen sex scenes made me realize something: How young it starts (with the tacit aid of parents/adults). What starts? The shallow, callous, trite, mechanical, uncaring, male-centric, banal, reductionist, utilitarian, hedonistic, consumeristic, functional, subhuman approach to that part of our lives where we give and receive love and life at the deepest level and which is all tied up with God who is Love and Life and Desire and all tied up with our destiny and our vocation and getting us to heaven.

--Casey Affleck looks and sounds like JFK sometimes.

--Casey's eyes are incredibly, incredibly emotive. All the acting is right there and in his hunched over comportment and gait.

--Several brilliant, lengthy, wordless sequences (at least one in slo-mo) that convey so much. (Kind of like the "Up" infertility and death of wife sequence.)

--"I can't beat it."

--"You know Catholics are Christians, right?"

--In the end, this is a buddy movie: Lee and Patrick.

--One of the quietest, simplest endings to a film.

Sr. Helena Burns, fsp at 2:41 PM

No comments:

Sign In

Manchester By The Sea

Recommended Posts

Guest

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Guest

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Guest

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Guest

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

Create an account

Sign in