MANCHESTER BY THE SEA: FAMILY TIES

Prior to watching MANCHESTER BY THE SEA I had reservations about what to expect. My whole family had gone to see the movie and could not say enough bad things about it. It was praised by tons of critics which sometimes makes me wary. Combine those two items and walking in I wasn’t sure what to expect. I glad to announce that the movie was a good one and worth watching but perhaps not near as awe inspiring as the critics made it seem.

Casey Affleck stars as Lee Chandler, the maintenance man/janitor of a few apartment houses in Boston. The film opens with his day to day drudgery, showing a lack of enthusiasm for anything going on around him. His life is the same daily chores followed by angry outburst after too much to drink. Then he gets a call.

Lee’s older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) has passed away due to a heart condition. Flashbacks throughout clue us in on various things that happened in the past, for instance here we learn of Joe’s heart problems a few years earlier. These problems led to his wife Elise (Gretchen Mol) becoming an alcoholic and drug addict which led to their divorce. It also led to Joe raising their son Patrick (Lucas Hedges) on his own.

Lee returns to Manchester where his family was from. He goes about the brotherly chores of dealing with his brother’s funeral arrangements and the rest. He tries to help his nephew out with what to expect but Lee is a man of few words. Patrick is more interested in scoring with girls and ignoring what is transpiring around him. The conflict between these two would seem to be the heart of this film but as it progresses we discover there is more going on than that.

As Lee makes an attempt to find work in Manchester people are talking. He runs into his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams) and an awkward moment transpires between the two. And as he attempts to find solutions to the problems left him with his brother’s passing he constantly buts heads with his nephew. Through it all he rarely has time to grieve. Worse yet he doesn’t seem to care.

Why is it that Lee feels so uncomfortable about being back in Manchester? What happened in the past that makes people say things like “Is he THAT Lee Chandler?” While the issues of what to do with his brother’s fishing boat (how he made his living), his house and where Patrick will live are hemmed and hawed about before a final solution plays out near the films end. Toss into that mix the return of Elise with her new husband Jeffrey (Matthew Broderick) and her born again atmosphere as she tries to be the mother she should have been and tempers rise.

While watching this movie I couldn’t help but be reminded of another heavy drama dealing with a dysfunctional family, ORDINARY PEOPLE. It’s not just the recent passing of Mary Tyler Moore that brought it to mind either. It was the similarity on screen of a family unable to communicate, to express emotion until it seems they are about to explode. For me Lee’s character is much like that of Conrad (Timothy Hutton) from that film but with less emotion on display. Both films shared something more than a dysfunctional family though.

Both of these films were heavy handed dramas that didn’t fit into any specific niche. Both contain characters that are in intense pain and both never reveal where that pain comes from until more than halfway through the film. It allows us to build up preconceived notions about the main characters that are completely tosses in the air when we learn more about them.

The writing here is above par for most movies, moving us back and forth in time and allowing secrets to be revealed as the need arises rather than just tossed out. The directing I can’t really say much about other than that it is seamless and nonintrusive. The actors are given plenty of leeway to form their characters and run with them.

Standing out above them in one of the most underplayed performances I’ve seen in some time is Affleck. If this were your only exposure to him you might not see it. But after having seen him turn in great performances before this time I felt like I was seeing someone using body language rather than words to show me the inside of the character.

This movie is indeed a downer. It has an ending that isn’t quite a complete ending. But that’s how life is. We move on to other areas of our lives. We deal with what life hands us and rise or fall from those circumstances. This film is not a happy go lucky date night flick. But it is a good movie and worth watching. Enough so that when looking back I felt like I could easily watch it another time. For me that’s the test of a good movie. And while I’m not much of an Oscar fan it should be mentioned that the film has been nominated for best picture as well as nods to Affleck for best actor, Hedges for supporting actor and Williams for supporting actress.

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