CAPSULE: Manchester by the Sea (2016, Dir. Kenneth Lonergan)

It's a little contradictory for me to sit here and articulate my thoughts and feelings about Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea (his third feature after the multi-career forging You Can Count on Me and the mythologically long-gestating Margaret), since the whole film pivots on the inability of a pair of men to do just that.

The men in question, Lee (Casey Affleck) and his nephew, Patrick (Lucas Hedges), are both coming to terms with the loss of Patrick's father (played in flashback by Kyle Chandler). Neither are coping particularly well with the impact of the loss, especially since Lee's life is now in Quincy (miles from Manchester-by-the-Sea) and his own tragic past locks the two into some heavy emotional intransigence.

Such deeply-felt-barely-spoken-of drama is Lonergan's home field and he knows how to play to everyone's advantage. Affleck stands out in the emotionally constipated crowd, set somewhere between crumbled mess and stoic rock. As his past is slowly unpicked (with the help of a formidable performance from Michelle Williams as his ex-wife) the film gains its complexity and its impressive resonance. Hedges, too, skirts Patrick's pain, though throwing himself onto his multiple girlfriends and his plans to take up his father's charter boat give him less inward-looking outlets. Together they are an extremely well-observed study in both grief and the aftermath of an upbringing that de-emphasises coping mechanisms for boys. That, more than anything here, communicates Lonergan's view of small town America.

Curiously, this understated Americana is given subtle poise by Lonergan's decision to frame his drama as a chamber piece and to emphasise his decision with the overlay of a choral score drawn from Massenet and Handel. He gives Jody Lee Lipes' static camera over to unfussy, often beautifully balanced, framing, which again pulls the emotions into the dramatic riptide that drags just beneath the surface.

In its refusal to say what it needs to say, or even often to feel what it needs to feel, Manchester by the Sea can be a frustrating watch. There is a scream that builds inside - one which can't be let out in the quiet confines of the cinema. It becomes unbearable at points and the film refuses to give it release. When the cracks show, the flood is almost overpowering and we get a hint of the loss that threatens to crush both these men.

Which is to say, it is quietly devastating.

★★★★

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