Last weekend, I was able to reconnect with my cousins Pam and Jerry DeSantis who invited me to join them in attending the 4th annual Middleburg Film Festival a short drive from their Northern Virginia home. Ironically, the theme of reconnecting with family made watching Kenneth Lonergan’s “Manchester by the Sea” (in advance of its November 18th release date) the perfect choice among the 28 films screened at this four-day festival.
“Manchester by the Sea” stars Casey Affleck as Lee Chandler, an apartment complex handyman leading an isolated life 90 minutes outside of Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts where his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) lives with his son, Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Joe’s sudden death forces Lee to travel to Manchester-by-the-Sea to stay with Patrick while making arrangements for Joe’s funeral. In the course of making funeral arrangements while staying with Patrick at Joe’s house, the film uses flashbacks to provide Lee’s backstory: Lee had once also lived in Manchester-by-the-Sea with his wife Randi (Michelle Williams) and their two daughters but left the town after an unspeakable tragedy. When Lee learns that Joe’s will provides and contains Joe’s wish for Lee to become Patrick’s guardian, the emotional pressure cooker of Lee’s familial past starts to come to a boil.
The conflict depicted in Lee’s character is what makes “Manchester by the Sea” noteworthy, particularly in Lonergan’s writing and specifically in Affleck’s acting. On the surface, Lee’s return allows him to console and reconnect with his nephew; internally, Lee is forced to confront past demons that caused him to abandon his family and seek a solitary life elsewhere. If abandonment can be justified, Lonergan and Affleck give an understanding voice to the horror in returning to an environment that’s a constant reminder of one’s personal pain.
This is a film about being forced to reopen old wounds, of being brought back to the scene of a crime of the soul. Affleck, in his portrayal of Lee, finds the right balance between rationality and regret; he encompasses the embodiment of a living ghost, a physical shell that contains haunted memories. It’s an engrossing performance of restraint that’s given all the more power through knowledge learned in the film’s flashbacks. In a role reminiscent of Albert Finney in “Under the Volcano” or Jack Lemmon in “Save the Tiger,” Affleck easily puts himself in contention for a Best Actor Oscar nod.
The right balance can also be found in Lonergan’s screenplay and direction. In less skilled hands, “Manchester by the Sea” would have been a downer of a drama, either an emotional rollercoaster or a depressing drudging of past pain. But Lonergan, probably best known as screenwriter for Harold Ramis’ “Analyze This” or Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York,” is a writer whose straightforward nature in dialogue and scenarios gives a universal feel that never feels staged. As in his directorial debut with his screenplay for 2000’s “You Can Count On Me,” the themes of reuniting estranged family and returning to hometowns once the catalyst for escape allow for the past to clash with the present-day in the most human of ways. In short, Lonergan writes for realism and provides enough depth in his characters to make them rich.
While Affleck and Lonergan are certainly the stars of “Manchester by the Sea,” the supporting cast is uniformly good, particularly Williams as ex-wife Randi who expresses the emotions Lee cannot and Hedges as Patrick, the nephew trying to reconnect with his uncle Lee while both are dealing with their worlds turning upside-down.
“Manchester by the Sea” is certainly worth a look. Like the film, Middleburg’s Film Festival and my cousins Pam and Jerry prove fine art and family is a formidable combo.