Thursday, February 23, 2017

Oscars Week: Manchester By The Sea

The reality is that death comes and we should all be expecting it. Except that it happens so rarely and so we become so far-removed from it. That's not true for everyone across the world, of course, and for Lee Chandler (played by Casey Affleck in an Oscar-nominated performance) it may seem to happen a bit more often. In Manchester By The Sea we watch this character face not only the death of his brother, resulting in his inheriting guardianship of his 17 year old nephew, but also a more intimate tragedy from years before. It is this earlier horror that really hangs over everything happening in the real-time of the film and which underlines Lee's grief. The film uses these situations to really examine the reality of death from the perspective of those left living.

And that's what Manchester By The Sea does so well. It takes a look at those moments around the death of loved ones that, when you imagine them happening to yourself, make you say, "I don't know what I'd do." This film sits in those periods of time seconds, hours, days, weeks, months, and years after the unimaginable happens. It's not a film with emotional grandstanding or heavy on the tears. Instead it is like a real-life guide of what to do when someone close to you dies. There's a list of things to take care of and Lee is too busy getting to the business of hospital paperwork, wills, and funeral arrangements to face the fact that a person that was there is now gone.

Because, at least according to this film, there are a lot of logistics and worldly affairs to take care of right after someone dies. Sure, we all know this, but who really knows the right thing to do in those moments? How do you negotiate funeral prices and make life choices with long-term impact in a state of arrested grief? Well those that have been through it know what they did and Manchester By The Sea seems to have been crafted by someone who has been through that and knows those struggles.

Kenneth Lonergan, who wrote and directed the picture, relieves the audience from having to face the overdone, melodramatic, and tedious scenes you expect but that, thankfully, never actually come. Don't get me wrong, there are some heart-wrenching scenes in this film. A lot of pain is communicated, but there's growth and understanding as well. Lee Chandler was a loving and happy husband and father before he went through what he did and the frustration of dealing with tragedy takes its toll, always bubbling below the calm yet hostile surface and manifesting itself with random angry punches.

Lucas Hedges plays Patrick, the surviving son of Lee's brother Jon, and received an Oscar nomination for the role. He delivers a take on how a millenial teenager might react to what is a not wholly unexpected death - his dad was known to have congenital heart disease and had been in the hospital several times before. I wondered if it was unrealistic how easily he seems to take the news and keep a sense of humor, but in time you see what he goes through.

The uncle-nephew relationship takes center stage as it explores a situation where there's love but also struggle. Kyle Chandler plays the father and has plenty of screen time in flashbacks which come and go quite easily to the point that they don't really feel like flashbacks at all. My one regret for this movie is that while Chandler does get dialogue, he's a bit more of an ancillary presence. Maybe that's because I remember him affectionately as Coach Eric Taylor from Friday Night Lights and here he plays a sort of version of that character with his matter-of-fact, let's-get-moving approach to adversity.

Rounding out the cast is a lovely Michelle Williams performance and I certainly wouldn't have minded to see more of her character's journey and relationship with Lee. A touching random encounter on the street near the end of the film underlines what Lee hasn't yet fully faced and why his improving relationship with his nephew Patrick benefits from mutual understanding. Death is a permanent part of life and it can't be forgotten.

Manchester By The Sea is currently available for rent or purchase through iTunes & Amazon.