Film Review - Manchester by the Sea (15)

I can't beat it. I can't beat it. I'm sorry.

In 2000 I saw a film at Queen's Film Theatre, Belfast, called You Can Count On Me. It was written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan and starred Laura Linney and Mark Ruffolo as bickering siblings trying to iron out their relationship. Put simply, I loved it. And now Lonergan has more than delivered on the promise of that first film. Welcome to Manchester by the Sea. 

Both Lonergan's movies have a convincing 'slice of life' feel. The characters' faces here look lived-in the first time you see them, and there's a sense as the credits roll of lives that will continue. You've simply had the privilege of hanging out with them for a while. 

Manchester's Lee Chandler is a blue-collar guy working thanklessly as a janitor in Boston, as buttoned-up as the winter jacket he wears. A phone message calls him back to his native Manchester (the Massachusetts variety), to help arrange his older brother's funeral. There aside from the obvious grief, he must deal with an ex-wife, an estranged nephew and a very unexpected piece of news delivered in the will-reading. Lee is reeling from his situation, but the reasons aren't all immediately clear... 

Lonergan's writing and the performances he draws out are steeped in believability. He doesn't do cliche or caricature. What he does do is ordinary characters who are real to the bone, and who simmer with the emotions they often fail to express - whether love, anger or pain. At the heart of this is Casey Affleck, younger brother to Ben. As Lee he is repressed and emotionally inarticulate, but stumbling and groping to do the right thing in unenviable circumstances. If you don't like him from the start, you suspend your judgement nonetheless to see what is going on with this guy - and on that score the story does not let you down.

Also memorable is rising actor Lucas Hedges as Lee's nephew Patrick, his teen bravado undercut by the confusion of bereavement. Scenes of uncle and nephew awkwardly readjusting their relationship are moving and often funny to the point of laughter. As for Michelle Williams as Lee's ex, she's not in many scenes - but God does she make them count. Truth be told every faltering conversation and tiny character moment counts for something here. The minute details of community life are caught by the director's unerring eye and forged into something strikingly authentic. 

Manchester's funereal subject-matter is matched by the depth of the New England winter, but this is far from a cold film. Yes it's profoundly sad (listen to the melancholy of that score), but there is a degree of redemption in the humour, the humanity and the sheer class of the storytelling. Present glides subtly into past as we uncover characters' backstories, then back into the troubled repercussion-strewn present. 

This is a bleak movie for January, no two ways about it. But it grips you and makes you care about these struggling people. And yes, Casey Affleck deserves his shot at that Oscar. Watch and weep, even when poor old Lee cannot.