Manchester by the Sea

Year: 2016
Genre: Drama
Directed: Kenneth Lonergan
Stars: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges, Gretchen Mol, Matthew Broderick, Kara Hayward, Anna Baryshnikov, Tate Donovan, Tom Kemp, Heather Burns, Ruibo Qian, Ben O'Brien
Production: B Story

Manchester by the Sea is at once, one of the best movies of the year and one of the most challenging to recommend. It knocks on the door of greatness by virtue of approaching its subject matter with uncommon sincerity and grace. Yet that subject matter - a concentrated dose of grief in all its uncomfortable bitterness, can't help but feel painfully real. I suppose in the strongest of terms one could say Manchester by the Sea isn't so much a movie. It's more of a human experience.

Humanity itself is startlingly realized in the funereal grimace of Lee Chandler (Affleck), whose own brush with personal tragedy has left him adrift in Quincy, Massachusetts. He keeps to himself as an apartment complex handyman, avoiding all meaningful human contact almost as a form of penance. So when his older brother Joe (Chandler) looses his struggle with congestive heart failure, Lee is put in the uncomfortable position of returning to his home town and having to wrestle with the complex emotions it evokes. Shortly before the funeral he reacquaints himself with his seventeen-year-old nephew Patrick (Hedges) who is suddenly left in his charge by the order of Joe's will. "I'm sorry, I assumed Joe had discussed this with you," says the lawyer. "No he didn't. No, he didn't." Each reiteration loaded with anguish.

Complexity through simplicity, much like the work of
George Handel which is very prominent throughout

The film is laden with tiny moments like the one above; short, affecting and scintillating with unwieldy levels of feeling. Sometimes those emotions are so tightly knotted in the characters personal story that they apex in simple anger and panic. Yet since we know where those emotions are coming from, we automatically identify them even when we can't describe them - complexity through simplicity. In one scene the self-assured Patrick is beguiled by frozen chicken and a silent house into a panic attack. The scene, taken out of context is austere and simple yet loaded with prior knowledge, the simple sequence of events proves emotionally devastating on all counts.

So too are the scenes involving Lee's ex-wife Randi (Williams) who's all-too-brief appearance proves poignant, tender and devastating in equal measure. Her dignity and quiet grace bristles with Lee's more turbulent expressions of grief yet her tenderness doesn't so much pour out as it trickles in a tactful display of beautiful, beautiful mercy. Her fate has certainly diverged from that of Lee but despite what we may think of or characters' choices, there's no filling the void in their heart.

In that measure, Manchester by the Sea is an uncalculable success, if for no other reason that it explores the way humans of all stripes deal with their grief. Writer/Director Kenneth Lonergan seems to understand humans in ways few do. Every word, every tiny micro-expression, every droll interruption of unexpected humor viciously stirs all those negative emotions we rather not face. He then provides no easy answers but rather allows you to sit in on his small little drama, soak in the quiet homily urging patience, love and understanding and lets it all sink in. Manchester by the Sea is undeniably hard to sit through but damned if it doesn't make you a better person for watching it.

Final Grade: A