Manchester by the Sea (2016)

User Review

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  stickaroundblog

  8 / 10

  Warning: The following contains spoilers.
  
  It’s almost impossible to avoid the buzz surrounding Manchester By The Sea at the moment, coming off the back of two Academy Award wins I thought what better time to check out Kenneth Lonergan’s heart-wrenching story of loss than now. The film hits you time and time again with Casey Affleck’s bleak performance as Lee Chandler, and with the brilliant additions of Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler and Lucas Hedges we are given a glimpse into the world of these characters forced to live with the events of the past and the present and continue on regardless.
  
  The film begins by introducing us to Lee, we know little about the man other than he appears to live on his own working a handyman job day-in, day-out with nothing else really going on with his life other than the odd bar fight. He is clearly a troubled man and through flashbacks, later on, we begin to understand that there is a dark past surrounding our lead. Lee receives a call and rushes to the seaside town of Manchester where he grew up to be by the side of his older brother, it turns out that he is too late and by the time he arrives his brother has already passed. It is here that we’re introduced to Lucas Hedges superb performance as Patrick. Patrick is Lee’s nephew and is now fatherless. Here lies the crux of the story and while Lee is more than willing to put Patrick up for a few nights until things get sorted and the funeral has taken place, it is only when the will is being read out that Lee discovers he is now the legal guardian of his nephew.
  
  The relationship between the two is fragile at times, Patrick seems to enjoy the fact that he can have his friends round whenever he likes and Lee will drive him to see his many girlfriends but ultimately Lee is a lousy father figure. He doesn’t hide the fact that he wants to get back to Boston and resume his life as a handyman and this clearly has an effect on 16-year-old Patrick, leading him to feel unwanted. But why would you want to return so quickly to a life that seemingly had nothing going for it? At the midpoint of the film the flashbacks come to a head and we are finally told what it is that turned Lee into the man we see now, this event that the locals talk of as if a playground myth and subsequently what exactly it is that makes Lee want to run from this place as soon as he can.
  
  Whether it is the tone of the film that changes or our opinion of Lee. I’m not sure. But this event gives us a greater understanding of our leads character and helps us to sympathise with him. Ultimately he is a pretty lame guardian to Patrick and the ending of the film comes across as somewhat of an anticlimax due to Lee’s final decisions. The lack of a true ending to the film feels measured though, this is a story about real people with real lives, we’ve become so accustomed to happy endings in Hollywood that when things don’t go the characters way it leaves us feeling confused. 'Manchester By The Sea' is a film that doesn’t pull punches, it knows that this is a harrowing and bleak story but in the same way that we can’t help but listen to sad music, we also can’t help but continue watching this man attempt to keep on living despite everything that has happened to him.
  
  Manchester By The Sea is a story of guilt, grief and loss and so going to the cinema it’s no surprise that the resulting film is devastating to watch. At times heartbreaking and at times uplifting it became impossible for me not to feel for our two leads throughout the course of the two hours run time. Anchored by a sublime performance from Casey Affleck we are hooked by the morbid fascination of his mental state poised on the tip of a knife edge, we fear that he could tip over the edge at any point but we can’t help but keep watching.

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