Manchester by the Sea (2016)

Manchester by the Sea makes me grieve.

This is a powerful tale of emotion, a tale of life being so relentlessly brutal in the blows it deals – and in how often a single man can be reminded of those blows. It is a real film – real in the way it portrays the process of grief, the desensitization it causes to the outside world, real in the motivations and reactions its characters have.

It all starts with Kenneth Lonergan. The writer-director shows here his uncanny intuition for sculpting characters in respectful, complex, and subtle ways. Manchester does not have one scene out of place: every moment has purpose and builds something into the story. Sometimes films like this one can become bloated due to their complicated character building and the many necessary subplots for doing so, but that is not the case here. In fact, as the film went on and introduced more elements I longed for all of them to be explored more – which does happen – just because these characters became so important to me. In addition to his writing, Lonergan’s direction matches the cold and somewhat aloof tone of his main character Lee Chandler, making the setting of New England in winter work to the film’s advantage to highlight the kind of endless bitterness that Lee undergoes throughout the story. He also intercuts the film’s main narrative with flashbacks to flesh out what is going on inside Lee’s head; some of those moments linger a bit longer than others, but all of them are perfectly placed and executed, never feeling overused or inappropriate.

If it all begins with Lonergan, though, it ends with this cast. Casey Affleck, Lucas Hedges, and Michelle Williams all do spectacular work here, and all their performances feel like a lesson in how subtlety can often win the day. Affleck is a stunning portrait of the paralyzing power of grief; he has a command over the desensitization and dulling effect his pain has dealt him over the years and of how it continues to haunt him wherever he goes. Hedges gives the best performance of his young career – which with the several fantastic ones this past year is really saying something – showing a different way of processing grief while also playing very wittily off Affleck; their chemistry as nephew and uncle might be one of the best things about the entire film. Michelle Williams, though, astonishes as Lee’s ex-wife. In several scenes, she is on screen yet not with how much her character is shown off. In one scene in particular towards the end of the film (if you’ve seen it, you know the scene I am referring to), she pours her heart out on the screen in one of the most gut-wrenching and emotional moments in a film chock-full of them. That one scene, with all of its restraint and subtlety, is an astonishing exercise in drama that shows the power of realism in writing and directing.

Manchester by the Sea makes me grieve for its characters in a way I have not ever done with a film, but it also makes me look at my own grief and see that it is something that might never go away. Its cold, unforgiving story does not spare any hurt, but in a way that is refreshing in a world where film often likes to have that happy ending. Life doesn’t often offer the same hope film does, and for that reason this portrait of grief feels transcendently real, intimate and forceful in its empathy but never approaching overt sentimentality or unnatural optimism. Its reality is ours when in grief, as cold and icy and unpredictable as the New England ocean around which it is so perfectly set.

My recommendation: It is a must-see, but make sure you have some tissues handy.

My grade: 95/100