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Your Ads Privacy ChoicesIMDb Your Ads Privacy ChoicesIMDb delaying its release until 2011 when it crawled into cinemas loved by critics but largely unnoticed by audiences Lonergan is back with Manchester By the Sea the story of a broken man returning to the scene of past traumas Striking a delicate balance between the sharp focus and sprawling scope of his first two films this heartbreaking third feature finally confirms Lonergan as an auteur of genuine merit rather than just exasperating promise Affleck is a silent scream waiting to explode, a swelling ocean of pain and rage beneath a surface of calmOriginally developed as a vehicle for producer Matt Damon (who was variously set to direct and/or star), Manchester By the Sea casts Casey Affleck as Lee Chandler a reclusive janitor eking out a meagre existence in the Boston suburb of Quincy Lee is called to his former home town of Manchester where raised eyebrows and whispers of local infamy (“that’s the Lee Chandler?”) haunt this hollow-eyed figure Finding himself unexpectedly in charge of his seemingly selfish nephew Lee wrestles with the ghosts of his past while attempting to deal with an unforeseen future for which no one believes him to be prepared – least of all himself Read morePointedly ignoring any displays of affection Lee is as flat and frosty as the snowy scenery crisply captured by cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes His only emotional engagements are outbursts of anger: swearing at a tenant whose leaky plumbing he has laboured to fix or punching customers at a bar after an evening of drinking alone There’s desperation in every movement Affleck makes from the defensive hunching of his shoulders to the almost imperceptible pursing of his lips a swelling ocean of pain and rage beneath a surface of calm What a contrast this presents to the flashback scenes of Lee’s formerly garrulous life which weave in and out of the narrative – intoxicatedly open oozing boozy bonhomie to the point of boorishness the threads of the dual timelines converge juxtaposing awful revelations against scenes of recrimination and perpetually open-ended resolution Watch the trailer for Manchester By The Sea.Around this fractured figure swarms a vibrant supporting cast: Kyle Chandler as the brother whose head is strong but whose heart is weak; Lucas Hedges inhabiting the netherworld between adolescence and adulthood previously explored in Lonergan’s 2002 stage play This Is Our Youth; and Gretchen Mol as Patrick’s mother a shrill alcoholic from whom Lee’s family have long been estranged separation from whom seems to have driven a dagger of icy self-loathing into his heart Lonergan demonstrates a keen eye for the mundane rituals that quietly accentuate the anguish of his characters Bereavement (a recurrent feature of his films) is somehow amplified by the dreary bureaucracy of form-filling while an absurd tussle with the wheels of an ambulance gurney provides a moment of almost unspeakable tragicomedy These are minor quibbles. As Margaret demonstrated, Lonergan’s films have always been more like works-in-progress than perfectly finished artefacts. For all its moments of discord, Manchester By the Sea sings its lonely song with tremendous heart and soul. No wonder it left me wanting more. This is the archive of The Observer up until 21/04/2025. The Observer is now owned and operated by Tortoise Media. 2016Lucas Hedges and Casey Affleck in a scene from Kenneth Lonergan’s film “Manchester by the Sea.”Photograph Courtesy Amazon Studios / Roadside AttractionsSave this storySave this storySave this storySave this story“Manchester by the Sea” plays the role in the writer and director Kenneth Lonergan’s career that “The Departed” plays in Martin Scorsese’s he transformed it into an exemplary emblem of his artistry it should raise his standing in the industry and enable him to find financing for even more daring and personal projects and when a compromise was ultimately reached dumped it unceremoniously in one New York theatre for two weeks with little or no advertising (On its budget of fourteen million dollars the result was catastrophic.) On the other hand Its technique isn’t any more complex than that of “Manchester” (in fact its time structure is simpler; “Manchester” involves a remarkably abrupt batch of flashbacks) “Margaret” is a story of upper-middle-class Upper West Side intellectuals and professionals and their sophisticated children argue with needle-pointed dialectical rapiers express their own and each other’s emotions torrentially and analyze them prismatically engage in mortal combat with political and aesthetic ideas In “Margaret,” the background—what characters think what they dream and hope and imagine—is thrust into the foreground by talk that doesn’t stop the action but is integral to it I woke to the sound of an engine sputtering and then a crash It was my family’s annual reunion in a sleepy town on the Oregon coast how it tipped into a house just one block over It was more than ten minutes before a fire truck came down the street We didn’t know who was inside the house until a father returned to still have time to read the newspaper before their children woke up When they realized what they’d returned to The father yelled for the firemen to save the children still inside We couldn’t bear what we’d seen or process what had happened begins with Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) leading an already broken life He shovels snow outside a building he maintains in Boston He blacks out in his one-window basement studio a can of beer rolling away from his prone body Three framed photographs are arranged neatly on a dresser traumas he hides beneath brawls in bars and brusque conversation Lee receives a phone call drawing him to Manchester by the Sea a small town a few hours drive from Boston a lawyer tells Lee that Joe designated him as the legal guardian to Joe’s son but we can see the discomfort the town causes him The thought of being a guardian to this teenager in this town is almost too much for Lee He talks about finding another job in Boston this would be a double-loss: first his father We see Lee’s history: a happy marriage to Randi (Michelle Williams) Why this history isn’t his present isn’t clear until until Randi comes downstairs and interrupts he walks to the mini-mart and buys two six packs of beer Lee can’t do anything but join those already watching still holding the paper bag from the mini-mart I shuttled my keys off my wrist and opened my mailbox especially: my upbeat voice as I answered “Hey!” and started telling her a story from that morning She told me about the plane crash my uncle and cousin had been in I sat on my couch and watched the local news as they reported skewed versions of my uncle and cousin’s names I was at Newark before the terminals opened the next morning replaying a true crime documentary about a young girl kidnapped by her Catholic priest What I saw that summer morning in that sleepy town along the Oregon coast served as a map because I had been there on the ground when it happened to someone else I had seen the grief on the parents’ faces A set of knowns I have no interest in knowing My hormones recalibrated; my period returned three weeks early experiencing that one week as an entire month Twenty-five of us crowded into a living room what it had felt like to live through that last week and what we dreaded about every week to follow One family member said he felt as if he’d been living in a silo ever since the crash: separate from everyone else who was not experiencing the same trauma like he was speaking a different language from everyone else I’ve had a series of three recurring nightmares I watch an airplane is it careens into a nearby building I know someone in the plane or in the building there are cats everywhere and I feel hopeless to save them I’m locked in a room with my entire family and two gunmen the living room in my mom’s childhood home except for the lack it highlights once I wake up but soon I realize that my cousin or uncle or both are there I do my best to experience their ephemeral presence Lee’s daughters climb over his napping body The life Lee built in the aftermath is a punishment He can’t fuck up what he doesn’t have to fuck up If he forgot to check on the sauce in his studio the only person he’d hurt would be himself He can’t fix himself or change his destruction This changes when he’s forced to stay in Manchester by the Sea Lee understands what it means to Patrick to have him there He goes to visit a friend on the docks; after he leaves the friend’s coworker comes in and says she never wants to see Lee Chandler around again They don’t want Lee Chandler walking around a living reminder of what can go wrong when you turn your back for a minute Patrick’s life still has elasticity; Lee’s doesn’t Lee’s life has borders he can’t cross; Patrick is still working to figure out which landscape he wants to inhabit Neither understands the way the other exists or the way the other handles the grief after Joe’s death Patrick and Lee are learning what it is to exist together and his friends; Lee has Patrick and his memories Patrick tries to look away from his uncle’s self-destruction—the empty bottles that fill the recycling bin the purpling bruise on his temple—until he can’t only to notice the three framed photographs Lee has taken with him from Manchester It’s hard to accept the others in your family as human to know that they are suffering the same losses though their suffering may take different form to know that they’re hurting like you’re hurting but he can learn to accept the presence of Lee’s open wound and I to warn each other about movies: “Gravity might give you a panic attack” (it nearly did) “Manchester will break you in half” (true) “maybe don’t sit through a trailer of Sully.” Often especially when the movie engages with grief and loss from a place of honesty and humor and Randi from a place of inevitability: these events happened shining a light on the pieces of it that I haven’t engaged with recently Understanding the landscape of an original grief doesn’t help with the second or the third after Lee explains about his new job in Boston and how Patrick will be staying behind with some family friends wooly truth of his unruly grief to himself Summer mornings along the Oregon coast are still gray Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site will adversely affect certain features and functions It is no easy choice for a film to confront one of the most powerful devastating emotions any human is likely to face: grief The pain and sorrow individuals experience from such horrifying tragedies is both universal and We don’t know how to behave around those presently experiencing grief; what is the right thing to say These are all issues that frame Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea a film exploring the aftermath of the death of a loved one (or ones) a recently deceased resident of Manchester-by-the-Sea Though his family were aware of his weak heart and various artery conditions that didn’t make his death any less painful or difficult The film demonstrates that we are all affected by grief and loss Lonergan chooses to focus the story on Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) he is personally and professionally unsatisfied and deeply depressed The death forces him to return to Manchester to care for his 16-year-old nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges) The film demonstrates that we are all affected by grief and loss I found Manchester by the Sea astute in contrasting personal grief with wider responsibilities Joe has entrusted him with the role of being Patrick’s legal guardian we see Lee’s responsibility changing from only caring for himself to having to manage the responsibilities of parental care experiencing relationships and trying to further his independence Manchester by the Sea is grounded in its location I hadn’t heard of the town before watching the film and so thought it was set in the UK but the fact that it was instead located across the pond didn’t diminish my engagement with the film parts of the natural environment Lee is often responsible for physically tidying up forces Lee to confront and tidy up the elements of his past that he has tried to forget but could never fully remove from the back of his mind is almost the absence of emotions through the unsaid the implied rather than the explicitly revealed Though Lee and Patrick are obviously saddened by the death of their relative Joe their mood almost presents a belief in just carrying on as things were before there is the revelation that Joe cannot be buried until the spring when the ground has thawed The question of Lee and Patrick trying to thaw their relationship The question of Lee and Patrick trying to thaw their relationship family and the past is one of the driving forces of this film hasn’t seen his mother Elise (Gretchen Mol) for a number of years due to her alcoholism and inability to parent he visits her and her fiancée Jeffery (Matthew Broderick) discovering that they have embraced Christianity Even though their family meal is well presented and looks delicious those lost years of parenting and connections cannot be so easily unwound Lee is forced to confront simply earth shattering and life changing aspects from his past that he has tried to forget every day Stumbling across his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams) in Manchester it quite quickly becomes clear why he re-located to Boston who was to blame and whether they can overcome their emotional distress The less you know about the scene going in I was quite surprised to learn about the level of critical acclaim Manchester by the Sea received This is not because I think it’s a bad film – far from it The individual performances are exceptional and really powerfully convey the aftershocks of grief alongside characters trying to progress with their lives I just didn’t find it a complete masterpiece that blew me away if you want a searing portrayal of examining the aftermath of the past and possibilities of the future This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission those are the films of a cockeyed optimist a stuporous Boston-area custodian with a tendency to lash out when he drinks but we don’t know what: The big reveal comes midway through that Joe has given him custody of his teenage son He doesn’t want to move back to Manchester-by-the-Sea and Patrick doesn’t want to leave his friends and his band but in Manchester-by-the-Sea he looks as if he’s being eaten alive But Patrick could be Lee’s last chance to escape the Slough of Despond As Lee moves through the misty seacoast town to Lesley Barber’s plaintive strings and chorales Affleck proves he can convey suffering as well as any actor alive But that fogginess can also make his acting seem vague and generalized His Lee is too far beyond reach to have stature — although that might Not everyone can rise to the level of a tragic hero Hedges has a terrifically abrasive presence: He’s too emotionally defensive to accommodate himself to Lee’s hapless Michelle Williams as Lee’s ex-wife has an intensely moving scene on a staircase in the middle of town She wants to call Lee back from where he is even if it means opening herself up to the worst imaginable pain Lonergan wants to build to an operatic pitch (the finale of Margaret was at the Met) and he floods what are already ghastly images with music suitable for immolating oneself Lonergan can’t overwhelm our senses the way he can as a film director and you can’t really blame him for wanting to see how far he can go But you can advise him to lower the volume Password must be at least 8 characters and contain: you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York Mediaversity: TV and Film Reviews Promoting Gender Title: Manchester By The Sea (2016)Director: Kenneth Lonergan 👨🏼🇺🇸Writer: Kenneth Lonergan 👨🏼🇺🇸 the only person I felt anything for was a supporting character The movie as a whole was disjointed in both characterization I kept pace with user ratings on Rotten Tomatoes (4/5) since the focus of this review lies in challenging its (lack of) diversity The most glaring of which includes the uncomfortable optics of lead actor Casey Affleck being fawned over by reviewers and winning Best Actor awards despite having settled two sexual harassment suits not so long ago Offscreen behavior should be taken into account when considering the merits of a final product; after all Gender: 1.5/5Does it pass the Bechdel Test? NOPE Not including extras, there were only four roles for women in this film. Of those four, two scenes were about men. Manchester by the Sea didn’t even pass the very low bar of the Bechdel Test. We also took under consideration the fact of centering an actor who has confirmed his own predatory behavior on the set of I’m Still Here (2010) a half point is given to Michelle Williams who delivers an amazing performance in portraying such an emotional journey There were only two people of color who had speaking roles in the entire film a closer look at the demographics of Manchester-by-the-Sea MA reveals that 98% of the population was white in 2010* This is a story about white people with only white friends While this scenario may be accurate to the true Manchester-by-the-Sea in MA these are still creative decisions being made by Lonergan that exclude women and POC While there are some good moments in the movie with small bits of humor, I found most of the scenes one-dimensional. In addition, the uncomfortable industry adulation that surrounded Casey Affleck—despite his confirmed abuse against women in reality—outweighs my ability to recommend this film * U.S. Census Bureau, https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/DEC/10_DP/DPDP1/0600000US2500937995 Indie director Kenneth Lonergan was in serious debt until a famous friend came along with the idea for a harrowing emotional drama 2017 Golden Globes: full list of nominationsRead moreKenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea is certainly not the cheeriest start to the new year but it will make you want to hug people afterwards the story follows Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) troubled handyman who returns to his self-exiled Massachusetts home town after his brother (Kyle Chandler) dies his brother has asked for Lee to become guardian of his teenage son Patrick (Lucas Hedges) a relationship that catches them both off guard we learn why Lee has become such an obstructive loner Returning to his past means confronting a horrific family tragedy and its unravelling – too spoilery to detail here – packs the biggest emotional punch isn’t concerned that he’s just made the most harrowing film you’re likely to see all year “You can’t get through life without something happening to you that you can’t stand and there’s nothing wrong with putting that in a story,” he says Manchester by the Sea is up for five Golden Globes this week – all the big ones including best director and best screenplay as well as topping the 2017 Oscar predictions In his 20s he made a brief living writing commercials and penned a couple of screenplays (Analyze This and The Adventures Of Rocky & Bullwinkle) was a gloriously talky endeavour about a teenager navigating a complex adult world of messy morals determined to find some judicial balance after she indirectly causes a bus driver to kill a pedestrian A producer demanded it come in at under 150 minutes; Lonergan wanted it longer Legal wranglings and re-edits saw it delayed for years with Lonergan’s preferred cut finally arriving on DVD in 2012 “I lost all my money and got into serious debt,” he says now “I had always bet on myself and it had always turned out all right in the end and this for a long time didn’t look like it was gonna turn out well at all There was definitely a victory to be gathered from the ashes Actor and film-maker John Krasinski (best known as Jim in the The Office’s US version) and his friend Matt Damon came up with the germ of the idea for Manchester by the Sea and went to Lonergan to help write the script Damon intended to direct and star but scheduling conflicts got in the way; eventually Damon told Lonergan he should direct it himself The actor has since said that one of the reasons he did so was because he and others were worried about Lonergan and wanted to get him writing and earning money again View image in fullscreenKenneth Lonergan (right) directs Casey Affleck during the filming of Manchester By The Sea. Photograph: Claire Folger/APMargaret – reviewRead more“Yeah not entirely on board with that perspective But I also wrote a play in 2009 [The Starry Messenger] and I wrote and directed a play in 2011/12 [Medieval Play] I did need money because I was pretty badly in debt at the time This was not a hugely high-paying job,” he says of Manchester by the Sea “but I really liked the idea for the story and I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.” whose performance as Lee is a searing portrait of a man who’s willingly closed himself off a unique bond that pushes against Lee’s determination to keep the world at bay Yet Lonergan keeps it grounded: there’s no Hollywood ending here His stories offer not easy resolutions but they do offer catharsis has said that Lonergan himself was crying on set after some of the heavier scenes people have told him it has given them relief View image in fullscreenCasey Affleck and Lucas Hedges in Manchester by the Sea Photograph: Allstar/Studiocanal“They’ll say ‘This is very similar to what happened to my father,’ or “I approached the subject with a certain amount of trepidation because it is so much more serious than anything I’ve had to live through and I wanted to be respectful of the material; even though it’s imaginary So I’ve been very gratified when people who have endured something like this have felt good about the film.” Why does he think it’s reached out to them what I think works for people is it is at least an attempt at being truthful It doesn’t pretend that you can get over something like this [tragedy] like so much of the sentimental crap that you see in films and television There’s a vast experience of people that really suffer and don’t know what to do with it There’s something refreshing and sustaining about [seeing that reflected in film] because you don’t feel like you’re alone.” Manchester by the Sea isn’t merely a gloom-watch It’s raw and real and at points almost unbearable; some of the moments between Affleck and Michelle Williams are likely to give you a minor breakdown Lonergan says he wants to emphasise that the film’s not “just a dirge Lee’s having a hard time getting through his life but he’s still very funny.” Really the film is about the endurance of the human spirit the pleasure of other people’s company and is we’re all in this together,” says Lonergan of Lee and Patrick’s bond and how they navigate their way through loss “It’s one thing to stay in a hole by yourself but once someone else gets in the hole with you you have to deal with them and it’s a good thing.” Manchester By The Sea is released in the UK on 13 January Casey Affleck is mesmerising as a Boston janitor who has to care for his dead brother’s son in Kenneth Lonergan’s weighty study of grief and family ties Read moreThis is about life as it is lived in the real world Lee bears the burden of a terrible tragedy which explains his exile from the place where he grew up; the current situation appears to offer the familiar trope of an unsympathetic guy poignantly redeemed by the responsibility of parenthood and odd-couple friendship with the quasi-child Yet things don’t work out anywhere near as cleanly as that This film has already been hailed as a masterpiece and I think it is, though of a more conventional kind than Lonergan’s previous movie, Margaret Manchester By the Sea sees him assume the self-aware weightiness of an Arthur Miller or a Eugene O’Neill but blends this with some wonderfully played comic scenes and even uses some trad jazz over a scene transition that is rather like Woody Allen Lee still manages almost to burn the house down by falling asleep with a pan on the stove Michelle Williams on Manchester by the Sea: ‘Closure only comes when we die’ – video GuardianThe Massachusetts hometown of the title looms oppressively over Lee It is a port dominated by the fishing industry Yet the nearest that Lee comes to smiling is when he goes out on his brother’s boat it is as if he must “beat” this place and what happened here Lee once lived in Manchester By the Sea with his wife Randi (Michelle Williams) and their kids; his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) lived there with his own wife Elise (Gretchen Mol) played by Ben O’Brien as a little kid; Lucas Hedges makes a tremendous troubled 16-year-old Patrick in the present day Both Lee and Joe came to be separated from their wives with clenched teeth that resemble angry little white squares like tiny tiles And anger radiates also from the grumpy tenants whose apartments he has to fix absorbs the feeling and sweats it from his pores Affleck compresses and dams and forces the anger anger that can’t quite find release in tears when Lee tells his sort-of son Patrick he is getting a place with a spare bedroom self-harming eroticism in the way Lee goes to bars Lonergan intersperses the action with the flashbacks that jab agonisingly into Lee’s mind Joe suffered from a heart condition and an unspeakably painful hospital scene replays the moment in which he gets the diagnosis which may also be the moment when Elise walks out on him for good Manchester By the Sea is a sombre and wintry film, and in fact the sheer arctic chill is what delays the funeral and creates the important, though hardly palliative interval in which the drama can take place and feelings can be worked through, as far as that’s possible. It is a movie composed in an inexpressibly sad minor key. by Ben Kuchera LinkLee Chandler (Casey Affleck) and his nephew Claire Folger/Roadside Attractions/Amazon StudiosI was in Savannah the first time I remember almost killing one of my kids My wife and I were fussing over a map on the sidewalk and my middle kid had toddled into the street A stranger grabbed the child’s arm and pulled him back right before a car sped past Someone else’s attention had saved my kid’s life; it was one of those acts of everyday heroism that is rarely rewarded I have five children and could tell you a dozen such stories All good parents remember at least a few times they almost killed their children the parents who could learn the most from those incidents would likely claim it has never happened to them All the good parents I know are afraid they are terrible parents All the parents that scare me are sure they are good parents and have little to learn I was so exhausted that I fell asleep in the bathroom and walked over to the bedroom to take a quick nap wondering if I had removed a toy that was a choking hazard from the play area of the younger children although it was more likely that I was willing to convince myself in order to get a few moments’ rest but that’s not always going to be the case There are ways to address that fear that are interesting and there are characters who could bring these realities to life and be advised that we’re going to probably head into spoiler territory here Manchester by the Sea is about a lot of things, including white male privilege and how toxic masculinity tears men apart but the fulcrum of the story is the death of Lee’s children He has friends over for a night of partying after consuming masses of beer and some harder drugs Lee staggers to the store drunk to get more beer and convinces himself along the way that he put the fire grate over the fireplace — in order to keep going and buy his alcohol You learn all this halfway through the movie right when you’re trying to figure out why this guy is so busy picking meaningless bar fights and reacting in dispassionate anger to the tenants of the buildings in which he works as a handyman The police react to the death of his children and the revelation that there was cocaine in the basement by saying it was an accident Consumed with guilt and having no place to put his rage he grabs a police officer’s gun and tries to kill himself So he spends the rest of the movie punishing himself But the only way he knows how to punish himself is by hurting others He takes a job that underpays him while he does passable work to the point where he can’t even get fired His rock bottom is a modest living in a small basement room We often talk about the glass ceiling when it comes to women and minorities in the workplace only rising so far but we rarely talk about the concrete floor that keeps white That’s the floor on which Lee lives throughout the film Everyone is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt; the movie even includes a scene of queasy intensity as his ex-wife tries to apologize to him Lee doesn’t change throughout the movie; he doesn’t learn or grow up but he manages to rid himself of his one responsibility to the world before the credits roll “I can’t beat this,” he says at what could be considered the film’s climax He’s emotionally unequipped to ever move forward and too scared to ask for help or even examine what he’s feeling or why Toxic masculinity keeps him from ever accepting help or trying to find anything in himself that’s worth saving assuming that this reaction is the only way out It’s a comfortable way to torture yourself while doing even more harm to those who care about you Many of you probably know a man in your life who has reacted to this way to tragedy Many of you may be men going through this yourself Toxic masculinity is a way of defining the narrow ways men are allowed to deal with their feelings and the world around them to react with violence and to see vulnerability as weakness Emotions are something you keep inside yourself rather than express or work through in a healthy way It’s worth noting that Casey Affleck’s personal issues have overshadowed much of the film’s success The actor has been accused of sexual assault and settled cases out of court for undisclosed sums He has been media-trained to deal with questions about the situation in the rare times they come up in interviews People in his situation are allowed to put certain things behind them by society and move on unlike the character he plays in Manchester by the Sea seems to have made the decision to do just that This year he won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Lee in the film Manchester by the Sea is universal in that every parent has come close to killing their children through an accident or momentary act of negligence But the film is particularly pointed in how it focuses with such laser-like intensity on the reactions of a single white man to multiple forms of loss throughout the movie The film’s antagonist is Lee’s own self-facing anger and pain despite the myriad of friends and family who try to help and the outlets available to him to work through his own misery There are no other stakes in the film except Lee’s possible redemption He is not worried about losing his job or finding another He solves a problem by selling his brother’s expensive shotguns to buy a new motor for a fully paid fishing boat The film tries to sell itself as a blue-collar melodrama in many ways but anyone who has grown up actually poor will only see the relatively clean houses which requires a lot of equipment and the use of a skating rink and he also plays in a band where every other kid brings their own instrument but no one worries about the cost of the hospital bill or burial The real world never has to intrude on Lee’s pain or his reaction to it There is no worry he has to go to work the next day Like most movies that center around white men in pain he is allowed to exist purely as a means of his own self-expression He doesn’t have to react to the world after the tragic events of his past; the world has to react to him only for him to ignore or refuse any of that support His own suffering is the most important thing in his life but it’s something that many parents can relate to There may not have been drinking involved in our situations but we have all at one time or another rolled the dice and come out ahead is overwhelmingly selfish and causes more hurt than necessary It’s a sad-white-guy movie in an industry that’s drowning in them “Men are terrifying creatures with an increasingly documented habit of killing women, gay men, animals and other men they don’t like,” Christos Reid wrote in a post called “Men Are Dying Because They Can’t Talk.” “But we need to start documenting the fact that there’s a 24 percent chance that death for a young man in England and Wales will come at his own hand.” Lee’s failed suicide attempt is never repeated in the film, but the statistics involved with male suicide are just more evidence of the disease that Manchester by the Sea doesn’t seem interested in naming while showing so many of its symptoms Manchester by the Sea’s most glaring fault is that it wastes an opportunity to look at the situation critically rather than through a flat lens that seems to state that this is just how things are and Affleck’s own privilege in dealing with his alleged assault underlines the issues with the film in a way that’s hard to ignore Every parent knows the fear of a near-miss when it comes to the health or even the life of their child or children but Manchester by the Sea marries that fear with a well-written meditation on the dangers of masculinity closing men off from their own feelings or experiences It tackles two common but under-discussed issues in society without finding anything interesting to say about either becoming a glass shell of a movie that looks good seems more important than it is and ultimately may have won an abusive man one of the most prestigious awards in film for so ably personifying everything terrifying about a culture of emotionally broken men in America 2016 10:47 AM ESTThe place you’re from is the most terrible and beautiful place in the world It may be so terrible and beautiful that you stay forever or so terrible and beautiful that you just feel stuck But maybe the only way to take the true measure of a place’s terror and beauty is to leave it like a bat out of hell the character played by Casey Affleck in Kenneth Lonergan’s enveloping deeply affecting drama Manchester by the Sea he’s working as a super in a nondescript building that you just know That Boston is both just a short drive and a world away from where Lee comes from a town on the North Shore where many still make their living off the sea and with tenants who belittle or condescend to him He makes arrangements to leave his job temporarily and starts driving north for whom he’d do just about anything entrusting Lee with the care of his teenage son but he isn’t up to the task of fatherhood for reasons that emerge as the petals of this multilayered story fall away And as he struggles to settle his brother’s affairs—which include figuring out what to do with the family boat an old chugger in need of expensive repairs—he worries more and more about what role he should play in Patrick’s life His anxieties intensify when Joe’s long-estranged unstable ex-wife and Patrick’s mother That’s the “what happens” of Manchester by the Sea supple magic of the film lies in the “how”—the way Kenneth Lonergan and his actors capture the way people talk in a way so detailed it’s almost Dickensian Lonergan was known as a playwright before he began directing films—his first followed by the 2011 Margaret—and he has a knack for making pictures that feel theatrical without being stagy leading you through a story rather than telling it outright depending on your taste and on your mood that day but if you open yourself to the experience Lonergan’s movies allow you to live with characters until they feel like people you know Sometimes they’re people you don’t like very much These are the kinds of roles actors vault over one another to play and everyone in Manchester by the Sea rises to the job an actor with the face and the charm of the young (and even the old) Robert Forster is terrifically casual in the flashback scenes: We immediately get the nature of his relationship with Lee—they cuff each other like lion cubs but they’re ready to defend one another with both their claws and their truest stripes hits the sweet spot between teenage defensiveness and pure guileless openness: He’s on the hockey team he has two girlfriends—but even as he’s grabbing for everything in life Hedges shows what happens when a confident kid gets hit with that kind of curveball as a woman whose anger and grief have become as entwined as a thick hard root: The scene where the ground cracks around her But Casey Affleck is both the soul and the anchor of the movie Lee is benumbed and anguished—at times he looks so dazed and indecisive you wonder how he can even move when he’s had a little too much to drink in a bar and thinks a bunch of upper-crusty white guys are laughing at him (maybe they actually are) he springs to action like a threatened animal every anxiety or regret uncoiling inside him in one bright burst Affleck has often seemed to me playing only slight variations on the same character: He has always seemed a little nervous and drifty and there’s a watery quality to his voice that I’ve never been able to warm to But I would trade every Meryl Streep performance that’s rightly or wrongly lauded by millions of people for just one performance that changes my mind about an actor and Affleck in Manchester by the Sea is one of those When Lee tries to brace Patrick for the sight of his dead father’s body He doesn’t look like he’s sleeping or anything.” And then he adds either.” Just how do you explain what a person you love looks like when all life has left him Affleck describes it as if he were steering a boat in waters as still as glass Contact us at letters@time.com the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognizes a movie I love "Moulin Rouge!," "Babe," "The Artist" and this year's "La La Land" and "Hidden Figures" are some examples of films that made me feel great the Academy isn't keen on nominating feel-good movies opting instead – more often than not – to choose smug and depressing projects like "Manchester by the Sea." Critics everywhere seem to agree that "Manchester" is an amazing piece of art it was nothing more than pretentious Oscar bait Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) does a more-than-adequate job of hiding his emotions from the world He lives a minimal existence as a custodian in Boston flying under the radar (as long as he's sober) But when news comes that his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) has died Lee has to return to his home town of Manchester where the ghosts of his past are waiting to haunt him again including his ex wife Randi (Michelle Williams) and Joe's son Patrick (Lucas Hedges) Every scene in "Manchester by the Sea" is about two minutes longer than it needs to be as if director Kenneth Lonergan is force feeding us slices of everyday life while saying: "See? These are real people doing real things in real time "look how important I am," and it's almost infuriating Affleck does a great job of acting like a guy who's trying his hardest not to show emotion and Hedges is an amazing actor; I expect great things from him in the future But the acting skills of a few doesn't break up the tediousness of the whole Perhaps I just have a personal vendetta against movies oversaturated with despondent self-importance but "Manchester by the Sea" seems like nothing more than an attempt to garner an Oscar or two so I didn't feel too subjected to what could have been additional hours of torture A Conversation with Director / Writer Kenneth Lonergan  Even the title of the commentary has to be pretentious the Blu-ray content producer does an interview of sorts with Lonergan whose monotone voice I can only imagine was Casey Affleck's inspiration for his performance in the movie Probably the most confusing aspect of this commentary is the two men keep insisting "Manchester by the Sea" is somehow a comedy There are several parts where the men remark on how funny the scene is I'd hate to see their definition of a drama Emotional Lives: Making Manchester by the Sea This definitely is not a making-of feature producers (including Matt Damon) and director dissecting the characters and plot and proclaiming how amazing this movie is My takeaway is they didn't have enough faith in their project to convey the feelings they wanted since they felt the need to reexplain it all in this extra There is no way I'd ever watch this movie twice so I couldn't with a clear conscience recommend purchasing it Follow Matthew on  Twitter  and  Instagram @MatthewJGeek; email him at MJacobson@TheSpectrum.com; call him at 435-674-6234 'Arrival' arrives on Blu-ray, and it's mind-blowing  'Trolls' Blu-ray is surprisingly ... not that bad Matt Ryan back as Constantine in 'Justice League Dark' 'The Take' puts Idris Elba through trope gauntlet Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones less than hot in 'Inferno' Manchester by the Sea has been gaining raves for the performances of Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams as well as Kenneth Lonergan’s script and direction But the breakout star of the film is Lucas Hedges a young actor from New York City whose father a Massachusetts teen whose father dies of a heart condition early in the film; when his uncle Lee both men must work through their own unique grief Vulture caught up with Hedges to talk about playing opposite an actor like Casey Affleck and the kind of career he hopes to have going forward What as your first reaction to reading the script for Manchester?My experience with great pieces of art is that I don’t always understand them when I first encounter them There are plenty of albums that I’ve listened to for the first time and it doesn’t register fully and then I sit with it for several more days and it’s like And then when I return to it  —I don’t know what it is The one obvious thing that’s different in how Kenny writes from every other writer is that he writes in overlaps It’s a film about trauma and tragedy and shame and whether or not we can recover as human beings I found it to be a profoundly impactful script but because they don’t have that capacity for creating those types of characters What was it like submerging yourself in the role of Patrick My colleagues and I have been joking that he’s kind of a shithead but he’s an asshole in the precise way that teenagers are.Totally it triggers my gag reflex when I read unrealistic dialogue from a teenager There is nothing — I will turn off a movie if a teenager says some slang term that just no one says I grew up having sleepovers at my friends’ houses and Patrick was the kid I didn’t know beforehand and just scared the life out of me because I’m a very easily scared person and somewhat insecure that was another thing I recognized — Patrick is the kid I’ve really disliked in my life but also has a deep struggle of his own and is just longing for love and is just terrified at his core he’s incredibly charismatic and charming and has found a very beautiful way to survive how did you try to modulate the performance Because he never really loses it for the first part of the movie and that starts to shift with the freezer scene.The beauty of Kenny as a director is that he has ideas of where the script could go but every scene could be played a million different ways and so he’s perfectly open for me to have a nervous breakdown in the second scene He’s very aware of how mysterious grief is We did the scenes so many different ways that it just so happens he cut it together where the breakdown comes in that scene Patrick’s known his dad was going to die for five years I think there’s a part of him that thinks he’s dealt with it But the actual loss of his father is something he couldn’t comprehend; he has no support team and no way of knowing how to deal with his emotions and it hits him in the middle of the night when he’s least protected and he thinks he’s completely alone Something that Kenny does beautifully is he’s open to being surprised but he does have an idea that Patrick probably doesn’t know how to deal with his emotions The relationship between the characters of Patrick and Lee is really important and very strange — you’re trained as a watcher of movies to expect the wall between them to fully melt What was your relationship with Casey like as actors and how did you try to situate the relationship between the two characters?The beauty of Kenny’s script is that we almost didn’t have to have those conversations All we had to do was engage in the moment of the scenes because the history of the character is revealed through the playing of the scenes We didn’t need to impose a story on to it — simply by playing the scenes That’s not true for every writer — a lot of times The beauty of Kenny’s movie is that everything is taken care of when you turn to the script A lot of it was just getting out of our own ways getting out of our heads and into the moment You’re still young and relatively new to this and who has so much experience with very heavy material like this is that he almost comes across as completely estranged from the world And so a lot of my interactions with him in the film I have to sort of get his attention and get him to come back to this world It almost didn’t feel like I was working with a powerhouse actor — it kind of felt like I was working with this really spacey guy It’s not apparent how brilliant they really are until you see the movie because Casey’s totally aware of the arc of his character You’re a young actor whose first big role is in a beautiful What kind of stuff has been coming to you since Manchester What’s your perception of what kind of career you want to have going forward Because the opportunity is certainly there to do much bigger movies.Thank you for this question because now I get to actually have a moment for myself and think about what I want I’ve been fortunate enough to work with — well but then I worked with another brilliant playwright I got to work with Greta Gerwig on her directorial debut I feel like I’ve gotten to work with two auteurs since this movie I think what I want from my career is to be able to create work for myself and there’s only so much you can do as an actor in a movie but to be able to write a one-act and play it out with my friends and pay for it and send out invites — that’s something that I haven’t done and having complete artistic ownership over something is something that I want for my life and I want to create an environment where I can bring in my favorite people and collaborate with them and do something that is so much weirder and so different from what you’d see in commercial film This interview has been edited and condensed and charming tree-lined downtown that is now ablaze in fiery hues of orange Manchester-by-the-Sea epitomizes your classic Norman Rockwell town with its Instagram appeal it has seven beaches along its coast and five towns hugging its border—Beverly “There is no other place like Manchester-by-the-Sea because this small coastal town is quintessentially as quaint as it gets,” says longtime resident Holly Fabyan a vice president at the local real estate firm J the town has ample conservation land for hiking and biking and Santa’s ride through town on a fire truck.” the picturesque community that celebrates its 375th anniversary in 2020 first belonged to the Algonquin Indians who sold it to early settlers drawn to the area’s sheltered harbor In 1645 the town officially changed its name to Manchester and became populated with dozens of merchant sea captains who traded with Europe and the Far East the town’s 160 cabinetmakers all went out of business But Manchester still had cool ocean breezes and water views not found in sweltering cities like Boston wealthy urbanites began building lavish summer “cottages” along the coast Actor Junius Brutus Booth (the older brother of the man who shot and killed President Lincoln) even built Masconomo House a 106-room hotel overlooking Singing Beach complete with tennis courts and a grand dining room seating 300 guests celebrities and dignitaries were flocking to Manchester including President Taft (and later Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt) who moved their embassies to Manchester in the summer of 1904 Manchester became less of a summer town and more populated with families eager to live year-round on this picturesque part of the North Shore which was renamed Manchester-by-the-Sea in 1990 The MBTA Commuter Rail from Boston drops passengers off in the center of town where you’ll also find plenty of parking should you choose to drive head to local favorite Allie’s Beach Street Café on Beach Street less than a minute by foot from the train station In addition to power smoothies and creative lattes with flavors like orange-chocolate white-painted eatery serves all sorts of egg dishes passing by Manchester Harbor on your right where bands play on summer evenings in the open gazebo The nearly three-quarter-mile-long beach got its name from the sing-song sound the sand makes when walked upon located off Route 127 heading north toward Gloucester The Trustees of Reservations owns the 66-acre swath of land famous for its crispy-crusted wood-fired pizza In addition to standard toppings like tomato and cheese they offer toothsome combinations such as sage a local go-to for lip-smacking homemade ice cream in flavors like Dutch chocolate most stores in Manchester are independently owned a 44-year-old consignment shop where you might score a gently used pair of Jimmy Choos or even an antique dining room table and chairs “Our philosophy is to be the destination of choice for discerning shoppers and satisfied consignors,” says owner Lauren Bunker “The Stock Exchange has an eclectic mix of ever-changing inventory Customers come to experience the fun shopping atmosphere.” Mahri is another female-owned boutique run by award-winning artist and master goldsmith Marianthe Anagnostis Bode She sells her unique silver and gold jewelry along with creatively designed women’s clothes Manchester-by-the-Sea has its fair share of excellent restaurants serving regional Italian fare like garlicky sautéed clams and panko-crusted local haddock over lemony risotto The post-and-beam building that houses it was constructed over a century ago and functioned first as a tavern before becoming a stage coach stop a farm-to-table eatery owned by Brendan Crocker he serves hearty seasonal fare ranging from tuna tartar with crispy wontons to cheeseburgers with homemade fries “Generations of families have lived in Manchester and developed lifelong friendships within the community because of its small size,” says Fabyan “And while very few inhabitants ever leave the town the ones that do always come back to visit.” Subscribe Purchase Back Issues Digital Edition RT Senior Editor Grae Drake talked to Casey Affleck, Lucas Hedges, and Michelle Williams from  Manchester by the Sea about the beauty and pain of real life and working with the genius that is Kenneth Lonergan The Biggest and Best Movies of the Last 25 Years Everything We Know About Venom: Let There Be Carnage Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Leads Critics Choice Awards with Four Wins The Thunderbolts Cast Share Their Avengers Announcement Reactions Saoirse Ronan Talks Blitz and Awards Season Fun with Timothée Chalamet and Paul Mescal – Awards Tour Podcast Hugh Grant Breaks Down a Scene from Heretic Florence Pugh Movies and Shows (Thunderbolts) 25 Most Popular TV Shows Right Now: What to Watch on Streaming 30 Most Popular Movies Right Now: What to Watch In Theaters and Streaming Copyright © Fandango. A Division of NBCUniversal Copyright © Fandango. A Division of NBCUniversal. All rights reserved. heartbreaking masterpieceWhat really mattersIn a world with too much noise and too little context We don’t flood you with panic-inducing headlines or race to be first We focus on being useful to you — breaking down the news in ways that inform We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today Kenneth Lonergan’s latest film features a standout performance by Casey Affleck by Alissa Wilkinson Both of my dad’s brothers ride Harleys His twin brother has a spider web tattooed on his elbow But you’d hardly call them emotionally open but they don’t go around talking about it a lot So when my father died suddenly of complications from leukemia at 47 process grief — with some anger and a few tears but also with a series of uproarious jokes I can still remember 10 years later I don’t see the family as much these days and it’s always surprising to remember that we’re all still hurting and trying to heal That twisted rope of grief, depression, and humor is wrapped around Manchester by the Sea, Kenneth Lonergan’s masterful portrait of deep tragedy and emotion among men in a community that prizes stoicism That community is the titular Manchester-by-the-Sea on the north shore of Boston — the other side of town from my family — an overwhelmingly white hamlet whose residents speak in thick accents It’s a remarkable film in almost every respect but its greatest achievement might be not just portraying but embodying the complicated inner lives of the men at its center It’s still rare to find American films that treat men, especially in rural or working-class areas, as emotionally complex; the other great one that springs to mind is Jeff Nichols’s exploration of masculine anxiety and dread in Take Shelter the deep tragedy is shot through with some truly excellent comedic writing The result is hard to categorize: Is it drama Lonergan writes his characters with emotion and affection weaving their extraordinary circumstances in with the ordinary ones: two people trying to figure out what to eat for dinner It helps that Manchester by the Sea boasts some of the strongest performances of the year — particularly Casey Affleck We don’t find out the details until midway through the film written all over his face and posture as he works as a janitor and handyman in a building in Quincy (pronounced kwinzee and seems to want nothing more than to disappear entirely He’s called back to Manchester when his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) dies, leaving behind a 17-year-old son Patrick (Lucas Hedges), whose troubled mother took off a long while ago. Lee’s ex-wife, Randi (Michelle Williams) and it’s the kind of place where everyone knows everyone and bumps into them all over town The film cuts back and forth between past and present echoing the uncomfortable jolts to the past Lee experiences as he encounters rooms and people laced with memories and trauma who’s both worldly and endearingly naive and who copes with his grief by going to band practice and hanging out with his girlfriends (both of them The patter between Affleck and Hedges is the sort that only a skilled playwright could write with a lot going on below the surfaces of the words The words flow freely until they actually have to talk about their feelings Their uncle-nephew chemistry serves to build out both their characters and a long family history of trouble There’s been much talk about Affleck’s performance in this film as a shoo-in for a Best Actor Oscar — and it would be richly deserved — but in a year of fantastic teenage breakout performances though the rest of the cast is also terrific Cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes shoots New England exactly the way it feels to its natives: sometimes so gloriously sunny and rich it can break a heart with a weather forecast that feels like an ongoing personal insult It’s not just atmosphere — it’s mood But what’s most striking is how the whole film comes together Lonergan never sits too long on any one scene or emotion intuitively sensing exactly where each look and line is most effective in a literal sense: At some point I realized I’d stopped breathing Lonergan sidesteps sentimentality simply by treating characters with respect I’ve found it really hard to write about Manchester by the Sea because it sunk into my bones so deeply it’s hard to extract Watching people go through the small banalities that follow a family member’s death is moving and making them compelling takes deep powers of observation Lonergan has given a great gift to American cinema one that sees life as both funny and tragic Manchester by the Sea opens in theaters on November 18 Understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day Here’s why your potentially romantic meetup actually sucks. A new prosecutor, a surprising defense team addition, and a whole lot of controversy. Candace Owens and Joe Rogan are the latest frontier of the Me Too backlash. Advice author Lysa TerKeurst has a devoted audience, a dozen bestselling books — and she’s divorced. annoying and sometimes inappropriately funny ways This isn’t something movies typically tend to acknowledge unless we’re talking about the films of writer-director Kenneth Lonergan where laughter and grief come crashing together in big waves of unpredictable emotions Though precisely written and sometimes overly controlled in their camerawork moment-to-moment instability — like those times when you find yourself crying in the middle of the day for no reason at all or trying to suppress a giggling fit at a funeral "Manchester by the Sea" excels at the depiction of such arrangements in ways I’ve never seen in a movie. It zeroes in on managing practicalities at a time of grief and our reliance on rituals that, when looked at askance, can indeed seem quite strange. Joe’s teenage son Patrick (Lucas Hedges) asks his Uncle Lee why the funeral director is acting so sad: "Doesn’t he know that we know he does this every day? Who does he think he’s fooling?" Lonergan nails the gruff, emotionally constipated way that men of a certain stripe (particularly here in the Northeast) express a complex array of emotions exclusively through busting each other’s chops. Affleck and Hedges have a crackling chemistry, constantly one-upping each other with profane put-downs that grow more affectionate as the movie wears on. Turns out there are a thousand ways to tell someone to go eff themselves, and some of them can even move you to tears. in "Manchester by the Sea." (Courtesy Claire Folger/Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions)Soon-to-no-longer-be the most underrated actor of his generation Casey Affleck delivers a towering performance He keeps throwing up walls that keep getting torn down throughout the film only occasionally allowing us tiny glimpses of the shattered soul hiding inside The feel-good pop myth in movies like this is that once the healing begins everybody lives happily ever after But the truth is that some people are too broken to ever be put back together Lonergan’s penchant for classical music was fine in the Upper West Side milieu of “Margaret,” but rings false in a blue-collar setting Handel is an ill-fit for these Springsteen people and a mid-movie blast of Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor is cranked so high in the mix it nearly drowns out and distracts from crucial scenes we’re trying to watch "Margaret’s" controversial sound design often prioritized passersby and ambient chatter burying the protagonist’s perspective as just one tiny voice amid a larger "Manchester by the Sea" finds less audacious (or at least less obnoxious) ways to continually assert the messiness of life continuing on Whether that’s a cellphone vibrating at a funeral or a malfunctioning stretcher that won’t fit in the damn ambulance the Cape Ann tide rolls in and then washes back out again Load YouTube videoFilm/TVRelated:Bleak, Mournful 'Manchester By The Sea' Packs An Emotional PunchSean Burns Film CriticSean Burns is a film critic for WBUR Kenneth Lonergan – builder and destroyer of worlds Casey Affleck delivers a career-best performance in Kenneth Lonergan’s stunning meditation on loss There is too much going on in Manchester by the Sea and still it is among the best films of this or any year and too full of nods to all manner of movie genres an insurmountable tragedy and an elegy for people living with their internal flame extinguished all these elements are bound together by the brilliantly humane writing of Kenneth Lonergan which is then paired with powerful performances by Lucas Hedges a stony-faced janitor living alone in the cell-like basement of a Boston apartment block This set-up follows a contrasting title credit set-up in which Lee jokes merrily with a young boy on a boat while his older brother making repairs and remaining impassive as tenants reveal their entertaining foibles He is polite and softly-spoken until riled either verbal or expressed through his fists Affleck excels at playing men whose intensity is channelled in uncomfortable ways climaxing in tragedy (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, The Assassination of Jesse James, The Killer Inside Me) Lee has cultivated a life that’s like he’s trapped within a sensory deprivation tank Only when his brother’s death prompts a return to the title sequence port town of Manchester is his back story teased out and so too his particular reason for bowing out of human entanglements the boy from the boat who is now a fatherless teenager Patrick has an enviably full and healthy life: school His alcoholic mother is AWOL so it falls to Lee to at least temporarily act as guardian buries his emotional landmine deep within the sprawl of everyday life Each scene brims with self-contained humour and drama, regardless of whether it moves the story along or simply fills in background colour. Moment-by-moment there are absorbing pleasures rooted in Lonergan’s command of dialogue. As in his previous features, 2000’s You Can Count on Me, and 2011’s Margaret characters communicate with a zinging curtness that would be bruising if not for the compassion extended in small attentive acts An hour in and the emotional landmine goes off We learn why Lee is no longer with his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams) The moving nature of this film relates to individual moments rather than a grand arc Affleck has access to such ravages that it makes you wonder about the state of his soul Lonergan catches you in the minutiae of ordinary living so when the emotion of extraordinary tragedy suddenly erupts LWLies 107: The Sinners issue – Out now! Ryan Coogler: ‘I’m more confident in my film language than I am in my English’ I’m Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today: The Video Shop at the End of the World The 2025 Cannes Film Festival line-up is here! The empty showboat of cinematic one-shots Inside the academic conference taking Terrifier back to school By Ashley Clark Anna Paquin is on career-best form in this important post-9/11 movie with its own troubled mythology By David Jenkins The Manchester by the Sea writer/director reveals how he creates By William Carroll Andrew Dominik’s 2007 biopic humanises America’s most storied outlaw. Little White Lies was established in 2005 as a bi-monthly print magazine committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them. Combining cutting-edge design, illustration and journalism, we’ve been described as being “at the vanguard of the independent publishing movement.” Our reviews feature a unique tripartite ranking system that captures the different aspects of the movie-going experience. We believe in Truth & Movies. highly curated editorial content brings attention to hidden gems and hidden gems of Massachusetts since her college days in Boston Kim has previously been a contributing writer for LA Family Travel Share LinkVisit The Small Town Of Manchester By The Sea In Massachusetts The Place That Inspired The Movie By The Same NameManchester-By-The-Sea a picturesque coastal town in Massachusetts served as a filming location for the award-winning movie "Manchester By The Sea." Even the small town of Manchester-By-The-Sea has seen its fair share of screen time This beautiful coastal oasis inspired the 2016 drama "Manchester By The Sea," a haunting film about a nephew and uncle who come together following a family tragedy The film was directed and written by Kenneth Lonergan and it won several awards including Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor Many of the film's scenes were shot in Manchester-By-The-Sea and other nearby towns Casey Affleck was one of the film's major stars a depressed janitor who becomes the guardian for his nephew when his brother suddenly passes Wikipedia/Bex WaltonMichelle Williams While the plot of the movie might be a little dark and depressing the actual town of Manchester-By-The-Sea is a beautiful seaside community filled with historic houses Shridharhere/TripAdvisorMany of the scenes from the movie were filmed in town. The dry sand here makes a musical sound when you walk across it Madlane2/Trip AdvisorYou make recognize this beach as a backdrop from some of the scenes in the movie Town buildings such as the Manchester-By-The Sea Police Station and the Manchester Essex Regional Middle High School were also depicted in the movie Has your town been featured in a film or television show? Did you get to meet any of the actors? Be sure to check out more movies that were filmed in Massachusetts. Choose your stateAlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasNorthern CaliforniaSouthern CaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyomingSubscribe... This Airbnb with a fishing pond in Louisiana is an angler's paradise. The two-acre, catch-and-release oasis is stocked with bass, bream, and catfish. Thanks for subscribing. We’ll see you in your inbox! Whether it’s gangster flicks like The Departed or ensemble projects like Spotlight films set in New England or the Boston area have recently dominated the awards circuit Leading the crop of 2016 contenders is Manchester by the Sea a heartbreaking family drama written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan In addition to being shot on location in the Massachusetts town from star Casey Affleck to producers Matt Damon and John Krasinski Lonergan explains Hollywood’s current obsession with New England What was your approach to crafting such a complex and melancholy character like Affleck’s Lee Chandler I’m always just looking for a vivid idea for all the characters then I’m just trying to let the material write itself they always have so many ideas and you try to find a way to fit their ideas with what’s in the script that was really easy because we have a very similar approach to the material and similar approach to working We really like talking about who he is and what he’s doing I think the single most enjoyable part of shooting that film was working with Casey How would you say Manchester influences Lee as a character or contributes to how he sees the world It’s a pretty wealthy town with a working-class port community that repairs and fixes a lot of the boats and people are trying to cobble out a living with a decimated fishing industry is someone whose been successful doing that My idea about Lee was that he wasn’t that kind of guy He was just more of a regular guy and he worked for his brother essentially as kind of being the patriarch of the family in a way But one thing that’s pertinent to the story is that it’s like a lot of families up there You know their family’s been there a long time and their grandfather That is very hard to make a living nowadays just doing that that’s who their grandparents or great-grandparents were then they live in the house built by their grandfather Learning about all that and thinking of the character in those terms even if all that is not directly in the story it seems like a lot of buzz-worthy films have been set in New England or the Boston area Why do you think filmmakers like shooting here It’s an area that’s really retained its identity A lot of the country has been homogenized and huge sections of it–even big cities–have been turned into replicas of each other Boston and Massachusetts have resisted that And the personality is so strong and so specific where the only chain they allow in there is Dunkin’ Donuts I think the chain store phenomena and letting other architects come in and redesign your cities and giving cities over to construction it just flattens everything out and makes everything the same There’s just a lot of this urban sprawl all over the place in New York and the Midwest and even in Massachusetts But I think places like Boston really retain their identity because they have such a strong identity Considering how hard it is to get non-superhero movies made these day was it nice to have people like Damon and Affleck behind this project Did you guys rely on each other whenever the process got frustrating They’re both people who generate their own projects a lot of the time or are involved in generating their own projects and I’ve had a fairly easy time getting each of them made I never had to go through an extended struggle finding financing for any of the movies and that’s owing to the generosity and guts of the people who paid for them it’s just because they’re smaller movies and they’re sometimes very hard to get financed Matt and Casey were not just helpful when we talked about budgets how we’re going to shoot it on film or on digital I would get very confused and overwhelmed and Casey would be like they can’t afford to pay for that but they can afford to pay for this “Ok.” He was really in my corner the whole time and Matt was too You had a tough time trying to bring your last film Was it a cathartic experience to move on to Manchester by the Sea I actually don’t remember when in time the two projects intersected I was able to do the extended cut of the DVD in 2012 and I was really happy about that By that time my film had been seen and liked by people who were really helpful in getting the film paid attention to So I was really actually happy with the way that turned out I don’t really remember when Matt and John came to me with this idea but it was not like they visited me in my hospital room I just liked the idea and it seemed like something I would want to write so I thought it seemed like a good project to get on board with and I had talked about doing something for quite a while so it just seemed like a natural direction to go Manchester by the Sea opens in Boston on November 18 The Best Places to Go Pumpkin Picking near Boston 14 Things We Can’t Wait to Do This Spring and Early Summer by Phil de Semlyen | Published on9th January 2017 at 11.47amRelease Date:13 Jan 2017 “Some films you watch,” hailed Ordinary People’s poster back in 1980 “others you feel.” By that same tagline logic is a film you get socked hard in the chops by It’s an emotional tour de force by a filmmaker and writer who draws a career-best performance from Casey Affleck and lays to rest the frustrations and false starts of his last film Lonergan’s film tackles the heaviest of themes there’s a sharply judged laugh or killer put-down but soulful and surprisingly funny with it clearing drains and dealing with the tetchy He lives in a box room and picks drunken fights in nondescript bars He’s a man doing penance in a purgatory of blocked loos and black eyes a seaside town an hour up the coast and the site of a loss so profound and inexpressible Only the sideways glances and whispered asides of locals hint at the magnitude of what passed He’s no longer Lee Chandler here; he’s the Lee Chandler Using flashbacks that bring warmer shades to the leeched-out Lonergan introduces the past players in Lee’s drama completes a domestic idyll of playful roughhousing and happy kids is diagnosed with a terminal heart condition in a hilariously dysfunctional family gathering at his hospital bedside The two brothers continue to take to New England waters on Joe’s boat taking turns to spook Joe’s young son Patrick (in flashback played by Ben O’Brien) with unconvincing tales of schools of killer sharks beneath there are even greater perils lurking just under the surface The exact scale and circumstance of Lee’s tragedy is finally laid bare in a truly harrowing scene It’s a typically understated sequence — this is not a film that milks its twists for dramatic impact — and all the more devastating for it with Lonergan’s camera focusing on the faces of bystanders as the emergency services buzz around them finally dealt into this hitherto unspoken catastrophe there’s newfound understanding of Lee; a surge of insight into his state of mind Affleck recalls Brando in On The Waterfront — and there’s not much higher praise than that Uplift comes in the shape of an odd-couple relationship with his nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges) a funny and warm foil for a man who’s lost his ability to relate He shoots the shit with his friends about Star Trek and awkwardly asks Lee if his girlfriend can stay over “Am I supposed to tell you to use a condom?” comes the puzzled response Patrick masks his own grief much better than his uncle until it finally pours out when a freezer spillage sparks a panic attack “If you’re going to freak out every time you see a frozen chicken,” he offers “I think we should go to hospital.” Emotionally tone deaf as they are it’s in these tiny moments that you can feel Lee’s sense of self inching back Affleck is revelatory in a role once earmarked for Matt Damon (who he and the terrific Williams try to bridge the ocean that’s opened between them Manchester By The Sea is the perfect showcase for his full range From playful and boisterous to husked by sorrow he flickers from boyish to broken as the timeline shifts there’s even something in it that recalls Brando in On The Waterfront — and there’s not much higher praise than that Movies | 02 07 2018 Movies | 17 07 2017 Movies | 08 06 2017 Movies | 26 02 2017 Movies | 12 02 2017 Movies | 30 01 2017 Movies | 26 01 2017 Company number 01176085; Bauer Radio Limited Company number: 1394141; Registered office: Media House Peterborough PE2 6EA and H Bauer Publishing Company number: LP003328; Registered office: The Lantern H Bauer Publishing are authorised and regulated for credit broking by the FCA (Ref No: 845898) It doesn’t take long for “Manchester by the Sea” to show audiences that it is a film built around life’s most tragic moments the moments when people lose family members and the lives of those left behind are changed lonely Boston-area handyman gets a call that his older brother Lee must return to his hometown of Manchester-by-the-Sea to take care of funeral arrangements and Joe’s 16-year-old son “Manchester by the Sea” is one of the few movies that gives the proper weight of grief thanks to career-defining performances from star Affleck and star-in-the-making Hedges Lee drives himself to the hospital where longtime family friend George (CJ Wilson) waits He was on Joe’s fishing boat the moment he collapsed and died of heart failure the movie flashes back to the moment when Joe his wife and Lee learn that Joe has been diagnosed with the heart disease that would later take his life This is the first time audiences see Joe alive and get a sense that he was the hardworking but infinitely caring patriarch of the Chandler family We also see in these moments that Lee is something lesser the seemingly stereotypical little brother who shrinks away from responsibilities and obviously relies on his brother a lot The loss of Lee's brother is much more than death of a brother but the death of his biggest supporter Much of the movie's dramatics comes from the flashbacks when the movie reveals past deaths and divorces Lee coping with the loss of his brother is always in the foreground of the story but the flashbacks bring the real tears and show why Lee suffers so greatly when back home Lee becomes the legal guardian of the teenage Patrick The humor that courses throughout the movie unpredictably bubbling up at the most inappropriate moments comes predominately from the slowly developing relationship between uncle and nephew The night Patrick learns of his father’s death the teenager asks his grief-stricken uncle if his girlfriend and friends can come over for pizza the teenagers are debating the merits of “Star Trek." The next day after trying to figure out funeral arrangements the two get into a shouting match while walking to their car A passer-by played by the film’s writer and director Kenneth Lonergan simply says “nice parenting” to Lee and it’s suddenly the teenager trying to keep the adult calm There’s a reason why Lee can’t live in Manchester-by-the-Sea despite his brother and family living there The reveal behind the two’s split is one of the most harrowing moments in modern American movie history The drama only builds thanks to Lonergan's ability to build up small town Manchester-by-the-Sea as a real town in his script the blue jeans and Carhartt jacket-wearing populace whisper The close-knit style of a small town is shown both as a support group and something inescapable which is fitting to anyone who has ever called Small Town All these scenes of high drama wouldn’t ring true without sterling performance by the entire cast It’s easy to see why Affleck is a awards season front-runner He plays a man who cannot properly express his grief with words In a climactic scene between Lee and Randi the two can barely string three consecutive words together without tears stopping them Williams’ performance is something akin to Babe Ruth being called in to pinch-hit She’s in the movie for maybe a total of 15 minutes but every second she’s there she brings liveliness Hedges as well amazes in his first major role as a movie actor His performance summons all the right notes of a teenager — emotional unpredictability the effervescence of responsibility-free youth — while also delivering a constant stream of laughs a talent on the script pages and behind the camera unlike any other filmmaker working today He translates the drama that everyday humans go through to the screen and makes them seem like massive Shakespearean tragedies without the long-winded soliloquies The emotions he stirs up in his movie seem like something rare in an age of superhero movies which makes "Manchester by the Sea" all the more great "Manchester by the Sea" is currently playing at FilmScene Kenneth Lonergan’s haunting family drama stands out from the pack thanks to its subtlety complexity and bravery in tackling the big issues And, in truth, Manchester By the Sea does conform to those descriptions. It is achingly raw and heartbreaking, and it will most likely devastate you. If that sounds like something you’d rather not experience, then it’s probably best to turn away now. But if you are able to stomach it, this film proves immensely rewarding. a withdrawn handyman who reluctantly returns to his Massachusetts home town to take care of his nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges) It’s a task fraught with jeopardy: not only does he have to deal with the challenges of caring for an emotionally raw teenage boy but returning home means reckoning with the traumatic incident that forced him to leave in the first place it would be unfair to disclose the event that transformed Lee into the defeated figure he now is but suffice it to say that when that truth is divulged it explains his outlook with heartbreaking clarity this is at times crushingly heavy subject matter Yet Manchester By the Sea never feels maudlin or melodramatic Lonergan constructs a jigsaw puzzle of a film elliptical flashbacks draw us into Lee’s world slowly and carefully View image in fullscreenMakes the most of her screen time … Michelle Williams It’s funny in the way that real life is funny but with sideways looks and coughs and interruptions and all the strange ways real people make each other laugh Many of its biggest laughs are entirely wordless nods and looks between Lee and Patrick that convey more than an artful bon mot ever could Their relationship contributes to a world that feels authentic and lived-in making the most of her limited screen time) that shifts from cordial to traumatic but both raise the thorny issue of whether we should separate art from the artist Should Affleck’s alleged actions discount Manchester By the Sea from the prize circuit By rewarding the work are we tacitly excusing his behaviour These are knotty questions unlikely to offer easy That seems strangely in keeping with Manchester By the Sea a film that resists tidy resolutions or simplistic life lessons At a time when escapism seems like the default mode it would be a deserving best picture winner Kenneth Lonergan is keen to frustrate the therapeutic trajectory of Manchester by the Sea’s premise One of the hallmarks of Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret is its montages of the Manhattan skyline Lonergan repeatedly scanned the high-rises of the Upper West Side to wallpaper over that film’s unfinished scenes and to suggest the impossible density of narratives swirling around his young protagonist the writer-director uses similar montages to different ends Manchester-by-the-Sea will look immediately familiar to anyone who’s spent time on the more rugged crags of New England’s coastline the local post office and nearly every other municipal building are white and weather-beaten like the mounds of snow that grow and harden and brown with dirt over an endless winter Manchester looks like a prison to Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) a handyman based in the Boston suburb of Quincy Lee’s profession suits his transient nature; his days are a series of fleeting transactions repairing people’s leaks and clogged toilets before nights spent drinking alone in bars or watching sports in a drab basement apartment Lee is called to return to Manchester after his older brother the end result of years of congestive heart failure From bureaucratic dealings to uncomfortable reunions with old friends and family Joe’s death forces Lee to reintegrate into a society he’s turned away from after an unspeakable tragedy Lee struggles to navigate through these rituals but his grasp on his grief is truly shaken by the news that he’s been deemed the legal guardian of Joe’s teenage son the popular and athletic ladies’ man Patrick (Lucas Hedges) Lonergan is keen to frustrate the therapeutic trajectory of Manchester by the Sea’s premise Lee and Patrick are united in tactics of avoidance: Lee trots Patrick along to appointments with lawyers deflecting long-term decisions—about guardianship and estate plans—in favor of dealing with immediate has Lee chauffeur him to band practices and between dates with his multiple girlfriends Lonergan fleshes out the history of their family through a series of slipstream flashbacks while others slowly illuminate earlier devastations and family who’ve disappeared from Lee’s life steadily accumulate as the Manchester winter slowly thaws into spring A lifelong dramaturge, Lonergan has a fondness for convenient metaphors and an ear for dialogue that edges gently past naturalism. This impulse suited Margaret’s stubborn but it’s a riskier gambit amid the working-class Lee consults a tenant about the leak in her faucet She could purchase a stopper to mitigate the leak “or you might want to consider replacing the whole apparatus.” This elevated language simultaneously delights the ear and flirts with excessive theatrical tidiness—a feeling bolstered by a slightly oppressive soundtrack and one too many bar fights intractable truths: Grief can be mitigated but you can’t rebuild a broken man wholesale The film gradually comes to its sense of exquisitely calibrated Every flashback and uncomfortable reunion draws out another vagary of the mourning process and Manchester by the Sea comes to incorporate a full community of souls and their attempts to communicate their wounds and regrets to one another and the rest aren’t sure what to do but crack jokes and conjure better times And this comprehensive emotional sweep is achieved with minimal exposition: Lee is revealed to be somewhat of a local pariah without any catty scenes of small-town gossip and details about the dissolution of his marriage are withheld simply because they’re abundantly clear on the alternately desolate and anguished faces of Affleck and Williams a symphony of agonizingly incomplete thoughts and gestures serve as the film’s emotional sledgehammer the would-be guardian who can’t escape his self-abnegating sadness the orphaned son who doesn’t know how to accept that his perfectly normal life has taken an abrupt turn Their testy interactions result in some of Lonergan’s most full-hearted comedy—indelible bickering about teen sex and a conversation where both characters refer to a garage door opener as a “bleeper” that any New Englander will cherish—and his most despairing sentiments Manchester by the Sea insists on the intractability of grief even as it implicitly argues that we have a social responsibility to take care of one another the film’s omnipresent structuring absences and every member of Lonergan’s impeccable cast comes off as a human being in pain just doing their best in the full awareness that it won’t be enough to heal or fix the only people they have left to love Christopher Gray is a film programmer at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine His writing has also appeared in Tiny Mix Tapes document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id" "aaa1eee6fe7d95cbfbb2bf49184e2270" );document.getElementById("facec42938").setAttribute( "id" and website in this browser for the next time I comment 2017 4:06 PMWith Manchester by the Sea's Oscar Nods Amazon's Big Bet Pays OffGoing all-in on theatrical release helped Amazon Studios grab the first Best Picture nod for any streaming service.Claire Folger/Amazon Studios/Roadside AttractionsSave this storySaveSave this storySaveThis morning Amazon Studios’s Manchester by the Sea became the first movie from a streaming service to be nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award validates Amazon’s counterintuitive approach to releasing its prestige films: The streaming service is all-in on theaters That may not be as obvious a play as it seems Amazon’s core video business takes place online and the budget required to market and distribute films in theaters is astronomically higher than simply pushing it onto the Internet But putting its marquee features on literal marquees turns out to be a gamble worth taking both for Manchester and the rest of its business the company partnered with Roadside Attractions to handle the actual distribution But Amazon took its commitment a step further months-long release windows before plopping its hits on the Internet In doing so, Berney and Amazon staked out a distinctly different position from streaming-competitor Netflix. In 2015, Netflix released the critically acclaimed Beasts of No Nation in theaters, but simultaneously made it available to stream, making an already jittery group of theater owners and operators even more ill at ease By positioning itself as a partner to theatrical gatekeepers But releasing the movie in theaters didn't guarantee its success a Best Picture Oscar nomination definitely validates Amazon Studios' decision-making around Manchester—and will likely give it a box office boost and a lot of attention when it's finally available to stream February 7—but it was still a risk That’s not to say Chi-Raq was any kind of failure; it was mostly a critical hit and should still pay dividends as a part of Amazon’s streaming stable going forward But it does illustrate that theatrical release is hardly a sure bet Promoting a movie and getting it into theaters even with the help of a distribution partner like Roadside Attractions the theater-first strategy can become a losing proposition that Amazon committed its full Sundance slate last year to theaters than it is that Netflix put its priciest pick-up “Probably very few people who watched it in the cinemas will watch it again on Amazon Video, but I would assume the streaming audience is many times larger,” Tony Gunnarsson, streaming media analyst with Ovum, “especially if you factor in Amazon Video’s global reach and the fact that the film will be on the services for years to come.” (Using exclusive content to capture audiences is one area where Netflix has found a way to benefit—particularly when it comes to documentaries. While it still hasn't netted a Best Picture nod, it's had multiple documentaries capture the Academy's attention, and Ava DuVernay’s 13th, nominated this year, is as good a reason to subscribe as you’ll find.) So yes, it’s significant that a streaming service is within statuette’s reach of a Best Picture Oscar. What’s more interesting, though, is how it got there: By not acting like a streaming service at all. It is the essential source of information and ideas that make sense of a world in constant transformation The WIRED conversation illuminates how technology is changing every aspect of our lives—from culture to business The breakthroughs and innovations that we uncover lead to new ways of thinking