Review 403: Manchester by the Sea

Manchester by the Sea is an incredibly and relentlessly sad but deeply moving and rewarding film and a showcase for some brilliant writing from Kenneth Lonegran and truly tour de force performance from Casey Affleck.

Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is a quiet and reserved janitor who returns to his hometown in Manchester, New England after the death of his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) dies of a heart attack to take care of 16-year-old nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges), but his arrival also unearths his checkered past. Soon Lee comes back into contact with his estranged wife Randi (Michelle Williams) as he deals with life in his tight-knit former community.

The plot is a beautifully well rounded look at grief and tragedy. How people cope and deal with it as well as how they don't cope with it and how it affects those around them.
The character of Lee Chandler is a man dealing with a lot of grief, he's estranged from his family and hasten't spoken to them for some time and he's taken a low profile job as a janitor and then his brother  dies and he has to take care of his son and that gives him something else to think about.

They say helping someone who is in a worse position than you are takes your mind off your own problems and I strongly feel this film is living proof of that. By opening up and taking Patrick into his life, Lee finds that he’s able to open himself up in ways that he hasn’t been able to in years

Manchester by the Sea also treats grief as something that is either difficult or impossible to recover from. The question that Lonegran invites us to ask ourselves is how on earth would we be able to carry on after an event so tragically of loss and guilt.
He also never opts for easy answers, leaving us as an audience to draw our own conclusions.

Writer/director Kenneth Lonegran's direction is sensitive, the cinematography is beautiful, the score by Lesley Barber is gorgeously lush, the scenery is absolutely stunning and captures the, the production design is terrific, the costumes are superb, the locations are excellent, there are some truly marvellous moments of tragicom and the ending was superb.

The acting is an all-round triumph, Casey Affleck gives quite possibly a career best performance as Lee Chandler a lonely, grief-striken janitor who takes in his nephew and has look after him to the best of his abilities. By taking Patrick in he finds himself in a circumstance in which he’s being dragged back into the past, dragged back into the town he’s left and being interconnected with people

The most remarkable aspect of his performance is how subtle and subdued he is. Which is fitting considering he has been emotionally closed off from society for some time.
Lee’s grief is very much shown as something that cannot be contained or subdued because his past lives on wherever he goes.

Lucas Hedges proves to be a true find as Lee's nephew Patrick, not only is dealing with typical teen issues such as having feelings for girls but he also has to adjust to a new life with his

Michelle Williams is only in a handful of scenes but lights up every time she’s on screen playing Randi, Lee’s ex. They were at one point happily married together but an unfortunate tragedy occurred that led to them getting divorced and them going their own separate ways. Because of this, she has own grief that she’s dealing with a

Tate Donovan, Matthew Broderick (yes really), Kyle Chandler, Heather Burns and Anna Baryshnikov  round out the films cast with flawless performances. Baryshnikov in particular has a very juicy bit part playing Sandy, Patrick’s girlfriend

5/5.

The Anonymous Critic