Having directed just three feature films in 16 years the twice Oscar nominated filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan can hardly be described as prolific, but when the work is as phenomenally wonderful as Manchester By The Sea, then the long wait is definitely worth it. A breakout hit at Sundance earlier this year, the movie was originally conceived by producers Matt Damon and John Krasinski, that Damon would direct and star in with a Lonergan writing the script. When Damon had to relinquish his roles due to other commitments, he insisted that when Lonergan stepped up to the plate, that Casey Affleck had to take the lead role. It was the perfect call as Affleck’s remarkably sublime nuanced performance looks like a shoo-in for a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
Affleck plays Lee Chandler a dour hard-working janitor/handyman in a Boston suburb who refuses to engage in idle conversation with the tenants he looks after or with any well-meaning strangers who try to talk to him. The reason that he has cut himself off from the world and is content to live in a depressing tiny basement room, is revealed gradually in flashbacks. His past was completely different as a happy family man but when a fatal accident robbed him of his three small children, and his exasperated wife Randi (a superb Michelle Williams) divorced him and left him on his own to deal with his enormous grief. He has opted for his new miserable existence through feelings of guilt as he really believes that he has no longer has a right to any level of happiness, no matter how small.
Then one day he receives a phone call to advise him that his older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) had suffered a massive heart attack and by the time he arrives back in their hometown of Manchester, Joe has died. Whilst still stunned by simply not knowing how to deal with this additional grief, Lee is then staggered to learn that Joe’s Will insists that he becomes the guardian to his teenage son Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Uncle and nephew had been close years ago, but now as strangers they both struggle to connect with each other whilst dealing with their grief in their own way.
Patrick seems to be in denial about his father’s death as he insists on going on with his life as usual with playing in his rock band and dating two girls with the energy of a horny teenager, and just hoping that his Uncle Lee doesn’t mess things up for him. Lee on the other hand, still unable to participate in any small talk, finds it hard to communicate with Patrick, or anyone else, as he simply cannot reconcile himself to the fact that he is expected to act like a father again ….. albeit a surrogate one.
There is obvious a deep bond between the two men but that does not stop either of them not wanting to let the other stop them from going back to their old lives that they felt most comfortable in. In Lee’s case that means slinking back to his Boston basement, even through it is clear that despite his desperation, that is hardly a scenario he can drag Patrick along too.
Searching for a way out of his new role, Lee knows that he cannot allow Patrick to re-unite with his estranged mother Elise (Gretchen Mol) as when she left home years ago, she was a very nasty drunk. A desperate Patrick meets up with her again, but even though she is addicted more to God than the bottle these days, it is obvious that living with her, could never be an option.
How they do move forward in the end makes perfect sense and credit here to Lonergan for resisting any temptation to give a rosy finale that would have not sit well with Lee’s continuing anguish. Kudos also to him for the very effective way that he kept the cameras way back on some of the more sensitive scenes such as when Lee has to tell Patrick his father has died, as it made them so much more powerful.
The music throughout is used superbly, whether it be an Duke Ellington standard or piece from Handel’s Messiah that is played at full volume which, with the snow clad ground, added to the wonderful bleakness of the stunning Massachusetts countryside.
Despite (or maybe because of) the immense sadness that Affleck portrays impeccably in his compelling career-best performance, Manchester by the Sea is one the most beautiful near-faultless movies to hit our screens this year.
