Review: Manchester By the Sea

Casey Affleck is living a modest existence in Quincy, Massachusetts doing odd jobs no one else likely wants to do, including fixing toilets. He’s dragged back to the title coastal Massachusetts town with the news that his older brother (Kyle Chandler) has died of congestive heart failure, which wasn’t entirely unexpected. What is unexpected however, is when he arrives in town to find through the family lawyer (Josh Hamilton) that Chandler has left Affleck trustee of his estate and the legal guardian of Chandler’s teenage lothario son Lucas Hedges (He’s got two girls lusting after him). The boy’s mother Gretchen Mol was a substance abuser who abandoned her family years ago. Affleck has no idea how to look after a teenager. In fact, the self-loathing handyman can barely give two shits about himself. You see, he and his ex-wife Michelle Williams were struck by tragedy a few years back, a tragedy that Affleck was unintentionally personally responsible for and he has never allowed himself to get over it or himself. And now he’s supposed to provide guidance and support for a dickhead wannabe player teenager? It’s gonna be a bumpy ride. Tate Donovan plays Hedges’ hockey coach, Stephen Henderson briefly appears as Affleck’s boss.

Although it’s founded on that hoary old plot device that I’m getting mighty sick of (guy comes back to hometown after the death of a family member), this 2016 flick from writer-director Kenneth Lonergan (whose screenwriting credits include “Analyse This” and “Gangs of New York”, he also wrote and directed “You Can Count on Me”) overcomes its clichéd set-up. This is a really good, sad, taciturn movie that is at times uncomfortably real. The bitterness and the reality are what ultimately set this one apart from most of the others with a similar jumping-off point. It doesn’t surprise me that the story’s genesis comes from a suggestion made by producers Matt Damon and John Krasinski, because the latter’s “The Hollars” covers similar territory, albeit less effectively. I still need to give it a bit of a hard time for that set-up, as I’d be a hypocrite otherwise, since I gave “The Hollars” some shit for it. All I can say is that this is an infinitely better film than that was.

Immediately one notices that Casey Affleck (handed a Best Actor Oscar by Brie Larsen in an awkward moment that should’ve been avoided) is in somewhat of a poor frame of mind. Shovelling snow and cleaning toilets for a living, he has two women clearly flirt with him that he barely notices, pisses off another customer, and gets into a bar fight he stupidly starts. All in the opening moments. So yeah…this guy’s got stuff going on. As much as he mumbles way too much of his dialogue as usual, Affleck is nonetheless well-cast as this rather ornery fellow who already has issues before his older brother dies and he’s been left as the guardian of his 16 year-old nephew (Lucas Hedges), who is kind of a douchebag. I wouldn’t call it funny exactly, as this is a tough sonofabitch of a film, but the completely awkward uncle/nephew relationship here is priceless. Neither Affleck nor Hedges has a clue how to relate to one another, and they don’t get all that much better at it by the end, either. Hell, I don’t think Affleck manages to react to anyone or anything in the normally accepted manner here. He’s not exactly likeable, but he’s not uninteresting or unsympathetic, either as a lot of people will actually relate to the guy. Flashbacks eventually reveal why he is in the current mood he’s in to some extent. You also eventually come to some understanding as to why his older brother has left the kid in his guardianship, too. Sort of an overgrown kid, Affleck’s character fucked up, suffered a deeply tragic loss he is responsible for yet unable to be punished by the law for…so now he basically walks around punishing himself and hoping someone, anyone, will give him the sentence he richly feels he deserves.

The supporting cast offers up some interesting names and faces, with Josh Hamilton, Matthew Broderick, and Gretchen Mol suggesting one has taken a ride in a DeLorean back to 1997. Oscar-nominated Michelle Williams yet again shows that she’s far and away the most successful and talented performer to have sprung from “Dawson’s Creek”, giving another wonderful, sad supporting turn here. Her one big scene with Affleck is truly heartbreaking, almost to the point of it being too much to handle. Kyle Chandler is well-cast as the older brother with the dickey ticker, and gets enough screen time to make it worthwhile. Meanwhile, as much as Gretchen Mol is the same unimpressive ‘It girl who never had and still doesn’t have it’, a sequence involving her now God-bothering character having an awkward reunion with son Hedges does provide yet more awkwardness in a film full of such scenes. It involves an interesting appearance by a well-cast Matthew Broderick as her nerdy bible-bashing husband, who is probably a decent guy but absolutely not a fan of the kid re-entering his mother’s life. You almost want to turn away out of sheer awkwardness.

There’s definitely things I could relate to here, whether it be experiences in my own life or simply thoughts and fears I have as someone rapidly approaching middle age. Some of what goes on here feels extremely and uncomfortably real, and let’s face it, clichés and stereotypes come from reality to begin with, don’t they? It’s the most taciturn, ornery sonofabitch of a film I’ve come across since “Nebraska”. This film starts off with a fairly familiar set-up, but manages to come at it from awkward and unique angles that still results in a story many will find relatable and even moving. Excellent performances too, even if I’m not convinced Casey Affleck won the Oscar more because it was a weak field than actually truly deserving it. An Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay, I just wish it wasn’t so initially clichéd, it would’ve made the film even stronger than it is if Lonergan had found a new way to bring these characters together.

Rating: B-