Manchester by the Sea
(2016)
(SPOILERS) Unlike his soporific brother, Best
Actor Oscar winner Casey Affleck doesn’t really suit playing normal people. Or
especially likeable people, come to that. He isn’t an actor you tend to feel much
in the way of empathy for, which makes his performance in Manchester by the Sea all the more impressive. Lee Chandler’s is
entirely shutdown, his emotional facility so deeply buried that he can no
longer connect to it.
Does that mean Affleck deserved the win? Aside
from Brie Larson being unconvinced? In terms of the art, sure (as to whether
the allegations against him should have seen him excommunicated, à la the now-welcomed-back-into-the-fold Mel, the Dolby Theatre would
be pretty empty if every insalubrious Hollywood type was held to account). But
he’s drawing as much on his own natural performance disposition towards the
interior as Denzel (the other main contender) is towards stagecraft in Fences, so you can pick and choose.
They’re different ends of the scale (some might say, designed for different
mediums, which might be the rub).
I can’t imagine Matt Damon, who originally
had the part lined up, being as appropriate to the place Lee finds himself in.
Although, conversely, he’d be more at home with the domestic (not quite) bliss
of the earlier, more contented times we see in flashbacks. Notably, the premise
was Damon and John Krasinski’s, pitched to director Kenneth Lonergan to write
for Damon to direct as his debut.
Manchester
by the Sea’s a slow-burn, which is evidently the
way Lonergan likes it, but he’s careful to install a fully-functioning motor
propelling the mostly low-key dramatics; like an earlier Oscar winner (albeit,
much less melodramatically), Ordinary
People, Manchester carries with
it a pertinent mystery (at least, during the first half of its running time).
Namely, what it is that led to Lee’s current withdrawn status.
When we first meet him, he’s taciturn in
the extreme, abrasive (but quite funny with it) towards the tenants he fixes
plumbing for, resistant to emotional contact but prone to bouts of violence. Various
possibilities propose themselves: that he may be on meds, may be repressing his
sexuality, may simply be emotionally stunted. It’s only through the refraction
of his interaction with nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges), whom Lee moves in with
when his brother Kyle Chandler (playing Joe Chandler – I guess it would have
been plain mean to turn him down at audition) dies, that we begin to receive
insights in Lee’s inner turmoil.
The relationship also enables Lee to
inhabit a more mature position, one that Affleck, despite being in his 40s,
doesn’t naturally give off. The pulse of many scenes is his verbal sparring
with Hedges (also deservedly Oscar nominated, and previously very impressive in
the underseen The Zero Theorem),
introduced in an altercation on the hockey ice but who, rather than being an
angry young man, is shown revealed as sensitive and more comprehending than
many of his elders. There’s a continual tension between Lee’s reluctance to
inhabit a parental role and his desire to do right by his nephew. It isn’t simply
the pull of responsibility; it’s the ghosts of the past in his home town that
claw at his stoic exterior.
Lee never actually gives voice to what has
happened, a masterstroke on Lonergan’s part. As much as he can ever say is “I can’t beat it” to his nephew, who
being an empathic guy, doesn’t need to push it further. The picture’s pivotal
scene finds Lee bumping into his ex, Randi (Michelle Williams), on the street,
she desiring to express regret for all the things she said to him, and he
simply unable to go to a place where he can broach the subject. Both actors are
outstanding here, but Williams is particularly extraordinary, and it’s abundantly
clear why she deserved her Best Supporting Actress nomination; it’s in the
Anthony Hopkins class of limited screen time having an enormous impact.
CJ Wilson also deserves mention as best
friend George, a rock in a sea of distress, as does Gretchen Mol as the
mentally-on-a-knife-edge mother of Patrick, and Broderick as her Jesus freak
fiancé. The scene where Patrick attends a reunion dinner with his estranged ma
is superbly pitched in its palpable awkwardness.
There’s also the occasional choice I wasn’t
entirely sure about. Lonergan indulges liberal helpings of classical music on
the soundtrack, most of which work to underline the picture’s canvas (small in
setting but dealing with the biggest themes), but comes perilously close to
distractingly overbearing in the use of Adagio
in G Minor by Albinoni for the replay of the fateful evening, as it has
become almost a cliché for tragedy by this point.
It’s heartening to see that Manchester by the Sea has performed so
well, a picture eschewing easy narrative strokes or a cathartic ending, and
it’s to Amazon Studios’ credit (Amazon had to come up trumps somewhere
artistically eventually, if they threw enough money that way, I guess) that
they’re investing so consistently in filmmakers the big studios aren’t offering
a look-in, from Whit Stillman to Nicholas Winding Refn, to Woody Allen, Jocelyn
Moorhouse, Park Chan-wook, Jim Jarmusch, Todd Haynes and (yes!) Terry Gilliam.
For Amazon, it’s probably enough that they can now boast access to awards
ceremonies, even if the picture was pushed out of most top laurels by showier
contenders. One thing they got dead right, though; debate may rage about the
appropriate of Affleck winning, but it’s hard to argue that Manchester by the Sea didn’t fully deserve
the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.
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