(some spoilers below)
I didn’t grow up in New England. My family is kind of Ireland via New England but I didn’t grow up there. However, I did grow up in a very Irish neighborhood in an cold northeastern city. I know people a lot like the kinds of people whose stories Kenneth Lonergan so perfectly tells in his heart-wrenching masterpiece Manchester By The Sea.
Blue collar, hard-working, beer drinking men with lively senses of humor . Guys like this have a posse of other guys they run with, lifelong friends to watch sports and good around with. Women who do the nesting, the work at home in ADDITION to outside the house, the child rearing and take care of the men. It is very much a matriarchal society, but these guys will never tell you that.
These guys are uneasy with emotion, with confronting heartbreak. Unfailingly loyal to friends in need, there often is, however, a maddening Irish stoicism that infects their psyches. I have seen it. I have seen heartbreak and loss manifest itself internally. I’ve seen it take the joy out of living for guys like these and lead to all manner of destructive behavior. I’ve seen it break men and destroy relationships.
Manchester By The Sea is not an easy movie to watch if you’re looking for life affirming narrative or cliff hanger drama. This is a deeply profound character study. At the film’s center is Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) . Lee is a broken man. Once full of playful humor, a horrific tragedy takes the lives of his children , an accident that he created, has pulled him apart with grief and guilt destroying his marriage to their mother Randi(Michelle Williams). Moving away from Manchester to Boston to work as a sullen and unfriendly janitor, he has no interest in human interaction save for occasionally getting into pointless bar fights. He takes a basement one-room apartment that is more like a cell, right down to the small window at ceiling level and complete lack of decent furniture other than a chair, a table and a bed and spends his off hours drinking beer and staring dispassionately at whatever game is on TV in a sort of zombie state. Lee has become walking dead, entirely broken.
The under-appreciated Kyle Chandler plays Joe, Lee’s brother who Lee clearly adores, some of the best memories he has are of Joe and Joe’s young son Patrick fishing on Joe’s boat. Joe has a heart defect and passes away while Lee is on the way to the hospital to see him. In the hospital Lee looks so out of place both with his own emotions, locked inside him and figuring out how to simply maneuver around people. We later find out that Joe has selected Lee to be his Patrick’s guardian, something Lee is not ready or willing, or perhaps better stated emotionally equipped to do. Even at the funeral for his brother, Lee, looks entirely uncomfortable, beyond any normal discomfort in the situation. Even his suit looks awkward on him.
Searching for options, Lee and Patrick get to know one another even going to see Patrick’s estranged mother(Gretchen Mol), recovered from a drinking problem and living in Connecticut with a deeply religious new husband(Matthew Broderick in a highly uncomfortable performance) . In the time they spend together Lee does get to know Patrick in his own standoffish way. In a very telling scene, Lee is hanging out at the kitchen table with the mother of one of Patrick’s two (!!!) girlfriends and doesn’t speak other than to answer questions as briefly as he can. This is one severely damaged man.
Manchester by the Sea is a harrowing movie to watch, Patrick, having lost his father and having no set plan, nor anyone jumping at the chance to step up and be his guardian, has to grow up fast. Lee moves through the world as if it were under a nuclear winter of sorrow and guilt, has a chance encounter with Randi who, desperate to share her grief with him and ask for some forgiveness and closure with Lee who seems like he is so close to the emotional breakout he needs, instead flees the confrontation between himself and his feelings. These six or so minutes are an amazing display of acting and Michelle Williams, who is always amazing, is beyond even her own high standards in her performance. In her relatively brief time on the screen she quite frankly steals the picture with an emotionally harrowing performance.
Lucas Hedges as Patrick may just be the strongest character in the film. He has to take on so much, but I fear his Patrick will be inflicted with some of that same male Irish stoicism.
Affleck nails his portrayal of that stoicism and inability to deal with emotion perfectly. He grew up with guys like this and so did I. Affleck, for me, is coming into his own as an actor in his own right and not just a sibling.
Lonergan tells his story with beautiful photography of a truly lovely part of the country, accented perfectly with a classical score. If you are coming to this film looking for the feel good hit of the year, you are looking in the wrong place. If you are looking for a complex story in terms of twists and turns, that aint here either. What we do have is a truly remarkable film that takes the viewer into such a gut wrenching and often dark place and exposes how some folks handle, or don’t handle a barrage of soul crushing adversity.