Five stars out of five for film Manchester By the Sea with Casey Affleck brilliant

REVIEW: Powerful, funny, and deeply moving, Manchester By the Seais a film that is likely to haunt your thoughts for days afterwards.

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (MA15+)

Rating: Five out of five stars:

Director: Kenneth Lonergan

Starring: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges

Verdict: A story of grief that’s full of humanity and humour

HERE is a movie set in a wintry place about a guy whose spirit is stuck in the deep freeze.

Lee Chandler (played by Golden Globe winner Casey Affleck) lives in a tiny apartment in Boston where he works as a janitor and handyman. He’s taciturn and surly, incapable of small talk, unresponsive to overtures from women in bars but only too eager to start fights.

Life has clearly been cruel to Lee and it’s about to pull another mean trick. When his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) dies suddenly, he’s called back to his hometown 90 minutes north, the picturesque fishing community of Manchester By the Sea.

Kyle Chandler’s character Joe Chandler hugs his brother Lee (played superbly by Casey Affleck) in a scene from film Manchester By the Sea. Picture: Claire Folger

Here, he takes charge of the funeral arrangements and learns he has been named the legal guardian of his brother’s teenage son, Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Patrick is a sassy 16-year-old who plays in the school ice hockey team and a dreadful garage band. Girls are drawn to his confidence: he’s carrying on relationships with two simultaneously. But he’s bottled up about his father’s death.

The film follows these two damaged people trying to find some kind of connection, while drip feeding information about Lee’s former life married to Randi (Michelle Williams) through flashbacks and ominous remarks by townsfolk surprised to see him.

Michelle Williams plays Randi, the former wife of Casey Affleck’s Lee Chandler. Picture: Claire Folger

On paper, Manchester By the Sea might not sound very appealing, but miraculously, this lengthy, achingly sad story is very entertaining and leaves you wanting more. An undercurrent of dry humour makes its way into even the most tragic of sequences.

Writer-director Kenneth Lonergan is a playwright who found success with his first film You Can Count On Me (which launched Mark Ruffalo’s film career in 2002). His more recent, troubled production, 2011’s Margaret, was warmly received by the few who saw it.

Here, Lonergan has created a redemption story of sorts, but one that is much less romanticised than other movies in that tradition. For this filmmaker, people are complicated and hard to heal, and their problems are not always solvable.

Affleck has won many awards for his tightly coiled performance and they’re deserved. The actor carries a world of pain behind his eyes as he goes about Lee’s circumscribed life.

Casey Affleck’s Lee Chandler becomes the legal guardian of his brother’s teenage son Patrick, played by Lucas Hedges. Picture: Claire Folger

The film’s portrayal of a teenager in crisis is amusingly believable. Patrick levels sarcastic, self-centred jibes at Lee, even though he’s dependent on his uncle to drive him around town and ultimately to decide his future.

Williams and Chandler are excellent in their supporting roles, while Matthew “Ferris Bueller” Broderick (an old school friend of Lonergan’s) pops up as Patrick’s would-be stepfather.

Powerful, funny, and deeply moving, Manchester By the Sea is a film that is likely to haunt your thoughts for days afterwards.

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA GETS SIX OSCAR NOMINATIONS

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (MA15+) OPENS THURSDAY