• Privacy policy
  • T&C’s
  • FAQ
  • Meet the Team
  • About TLE
SUPPORT FREE INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Film
  • Food
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Film
  • Food
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
No Result
View All Result
Home Film

Manchester By The Sea: Review

By Linda Marric @linda_marric Written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester By The Sea is a beautifully crafted powerful story which centres around themes of loss, frayed human relations, and more importantly the persistence of grief and how people deal with loss in different ways. Lonergan is well versed on things of this nature, given […]

Kit Power by Kit Power
January 9, 2017
in Film, Film Reviews
Manchester By The Sea: Review

By Linda Marric @linda_marric

Written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester By The Sea is a beautifully crafted powerful story which centres around themes of loss, frayed human relations, and more importantly the persistence of grief and how people deal with loss in different ways. Lonergan is well versed on things of this nature, given his critically acclaimed debut featureYou Can Count On Me which dealt with similar subjects.

Casey Affleck is Lee, a withdrawn hard-working Boston handyman whose world is limited to fixing broken toilets, changing lightbulbs and being talked down to by his snooty clients.

Lee fills his spare time by getting blind drunk most nights and starting fights with strangers in bars, until he is one day called upon to make an immediate trip back to his hometown of Manchester By The Sea where his ailing older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) has been taken ill. After Joe’s untimely death, Lee discovers that Joe has left instructions for him to be his son Patrick’s (Lucas Hedges) legal guardian, something which Lee isn’t too happy about and is unwilling to fulfil.

Lee is solemn, taciturn and mournful. He is a man of few words, and Affleck’s subtlety in depicting such a complex character is quite remarkable. It soon transpires that we are dealing with much more than we originally bargained for. We find out that Lee was forced to leave his hometown under devastating undisclosed circumstances. With a succession of cleverly placed flashbacks, the blanks start to gradually be filled, so when the big reveal comes, it brings with it a slow and agonising chain of events. Lonergan’s use of Tomaso Albinoni’s mournful Adagio in G Minor as the backdrop to the reveal adds another layer of sorrow and tragedy to the proceedings.

Michelle Williams is impressively convincing as Lee’s long suffering ex-wife Randi, as is 19 year old Lucas Hedges who plays Patrick with a huge amount of self-assured youthful cockiness and playful banter. Hedges is relied upon to bring some much needed comic relief to the narrative, as a two-timing teenage Don Juan who does his best to bring his uncle out of his daily misery.

Lonergan’s use of the non-linear narrative arc adds a certain amount of suspenseful drama to the proceedings, as well as a great deal of melancholic longing. While the film can be safely put into a box marked “family drama”, Manchester By The Sea is so much more than that. It is a film that will swallow you whole and spit you out when it’s managed to harness just enough anguish and tears and will leave you wondering what has just hit you. It is a film that ends not so much on a happy note, but on a less depressing one. Casey shows again that he is the more talented Affleck and can be relied upon to take on mammoth roles without even flinching. Lonergan manages to thrill as well as break hearts with a killer screenplay and a fantastic cast.

RelatedPosts

Ophelia: Maddening

Undocument: How The Other Half Live

The Irishman: Life is very, very long

Q&A with John Chester, director of The Biggest Little Farm

Manchester By The Sea is on release from Friday 13th January

 

 

Tags: Casey AffleckFilm ReviewGriefGuiltKenneth LonerganKyle ChandlerLossLucas Hedges
Support free independent investigative journalismSupport free independent investigative journalismSupport free independent investigative journalism
Kit Power

Kit Power

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Trending fromTLE

  • All
  • trending
Jeremy Corbyn is the most smeared politician in history

Jeremy Corbyn is the most smeared politician in history

The story of how the Conservatives crippled the country

The British Government has ruined my life

SWNS Pictures of the Year 2015 - One hundred of the most compelling images on the SWNS wire this year as chosen by our picture editors. Refugees from Syria leave Glasgow Airport in five coaches in heavy rain, November 17, 2015, from where they will be dispersed to their new homes within Scotland. See SWNS story SWREFUGEE: The first charter flight carrying Syrian refugees arrived in the UK yesterday (Tues) as part of the Government's resettlement scheme. Around 100 people were transported by plane from refugee camps in the Middle East, travelling from Beirut in Lebanon to Glasgow Airport. Many have been described as vulnerable and some had stayed in camps for up to four years. Landing in Glasgow at 3.30pm yesterday afternoon, the first arrivals were expected to be resettled by local authorities across the country, including Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Lift The Ban petition reveals staggering cost to UK economy of asylum seekers being banned from working

Latest from TLE

National Lottery Results – Wednesday 3rd July 2019

National Lottery Lotto Results – Saturday 7th December 2019

thunder ball results

Thunder Ball Results, Saturday 7th December 2019

BORIS JOHNSON

Fuming Boris Johnson: Constant questions about my dishonesty not my fault

Investigation launched as patient dies waiting to be treated at Midlands hospital

New poll shows Tory lead cut to 6% & Tory majority can be stopped with tactical voting

About Us

TheLondonEconomic.com – Open, accessible and accountable news, sport, culture and lifestyle.

Read more

Address

TLE,
International House,
24 Holborn Viaduct,
London EC1A 2BN,
United Kingdom

Contact

Editorial enquiries, please contact: jack@thelondoneconomic.com

Commercial enquiries, please contact: advertise@thelondoneconomic.com

SUPPORT

We do not charge or put articles behind a paywall. If you can, please show your appreciation for our free content by donating whatever you think is fair to help keep TLE growing and support real, independent, investigative journalism.

DONATE & SUPPORT

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.




No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Film
  • Lifestyle
  • Food
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech & Auto
  • About TLE
  • Meet the Team
  • Privacy policy

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.