Manchester by the Sea is a deeply affecting mandatory viewing

MAKE no mistake. Watching Manchester by the Sea should be mandatory. Powered by incredible performances, this is one affecting film you will not forget.

REVIEW

MAKE no mistake. Manchester by the Sea is mandatory viewing.

You may have heard about this film and the raw power of Casey Affleck’s incredible performance as it made its way around the awards show circuit. Be assured: All that hype is on point.

It may be a potent examination of grief, family and self-imposed solitude, but it’s also oddly life-affirming and uplifting.

Lee Chandler (Affleck) lives a lonely, mundane existence in Boston as a janitor. He plunges toilets, shovels snow and lives in a basement apartment with a tiny window. When his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) dies from a known heart condition, he’s pulled back to his seaside hometown of Manchester in Massachusetts.

Joe’s will stipulates that Lee is to have guardianship of his teenage nephew Patrick (breakout star Lucas Hedges) but it would necessitate him moving back to a town he can’t bear to be in. Lee is at a loss, never imagining the responsibility would fall to him — “I’m the back-up,” he insists.

Lee appears to be emotionally shut-down and withdrawn, unable to connect with people around him including his nephew. But Manchester by the Sea starts with and is intercut with flashbacks to an earlier time and a more effusive and gregarious Lee.

It’s hinted that something happened to Lee to precipitate this transformation and when the film reveals that event midway through the film, it is gut-wrenching.

Casey Affleck in his career-best role with newcomer Lucas Hedges.

Patrick is a well-adjusted kid with a full life and a large support network, and he doesn’t want to leave Manchester. This focus on Lee and Patrick’s relationship and how they deal with their new realities is the driving force of the film.

As the dreary winter snow melts into spring, a lesser film would’ve been tempted to parallel it with a thawing of Lee’s heart and a “happy” ending, but Manchester by the Sea doesn’t take the conventional storytelling path, taking you somewhere unexpected but more authentic.

It’s an intimate portrait of how grief manifests differently in different people. Writer/director Kenneth Lonergan (You Can Count on Me, Margaret) explores this deftly by giving these characters their own way of mourning Joe’s death.

Economical and sparse in his filmmaking, Lonergan lets the story and performances take centre stage. Any filmmaking pizzazz is done in the service of these fully formed characters, not for the sake of being flashy. The shots do tend to be on the longer side, allowing a moment to dwell with a character for a beat longer than you’re used to.

Michelle Williams is reliably great.

There are wonderful turns by the likes of Tate Donovan, Matthew Broderick, Heather Burns and Gretchen Mol in smaller parts and Michelle Williams as Lee’s ex-wife is, as always, a welcome presence.

But the film belongs to Affleck and relative newcomer Hedges. The easy chemistry between the two both grounds the film and sparks it to life in what could’ve been a depressing and heavy-handed story.

Affleck’s range and his ability to convey so much without expressing much on the surface and saying even less is a testament to how far he’s come since these early bit-part days in Ocean’s Eleven and Chasing Amy. Even his excellent, Oscar-nominated performance in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford has nothing on what he manages to do on screen here. He embodies this character completely — it’s everything from Lee’s defeated, physical bearing to the detachment laced in his voice.

Manchester by the Sea is deeply, deeply affecting and a film you won’t be forgetting in a hurry. It’s the kind of character-driven storytelling everyone should be making their first priority to see.

Rating: 5/5

Manchester by the Sea is in cinemas from Thursday February 2.

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Kenneth Lonergan has crafted a deeply affecting story in Manchester by the Sea.

Originally published as Manchester by the Sea is a deeply affecting mandatory viewing