"I Can't Beat It. I Can't Beat It, I'm Sorry..."
Arriving on a weekend packed to the rafters with a wide range of movie releases, the release of Manchester By The Sea carries with it the annoyingly unavoidable air of hype which has engulfed it over the past few months or so, resulting in an inevitable array of Golden Globe nominations as well as being tipped as one of the top contenders for the upcoming Academy Awards which takes place next month. Directed by Kenneth Lonergan, whose previous credits include screenplays for Gangs of New York and Analyze This, Manchester By The Sea follows in the footsteps of La La Land by being a film which lives up to its' high expectations, a touching tale of loss, sorrow and the chance of redemption held together by a simply outstanding performance from Casey Affleck who undoubtedly will walk away with the Oscar for Best Actor next month, and a sharp, snappy screenplay which dissects the everyday notions of family and friendship upon an overarching melancholic plot thread which acts as the central cornerstone of a movie seeped in utterly believable human emotion.
Cowering throughout the movie in an unbearable understated embodiment of repressed emotion, Affleck's Lee Chandler is a complex shadow of a character, one who is brought back to his titular homeland after the death of his brother and one whose societal absence verges on the edge of a complete dissociation with anyone around who shows him the slightest bit of attention. Add into the mix Lucas Hedge's Patrick, the son of Lee's lost brother, and the film begins to unravel a parallel between the past and the future, one which balances out loss with a chance of redemption for a character who could easily burst into a complete and utter meltdown at any moment throughout the film. Subsequently, the commanding performance of Affleck ironically leads to the film's only real setback, with Michelle Williams strangely seeming rather absent and underused, alongside other characters which come and go rather too swiftly. Ultimately, Manchester By The Sea is Affleck's movie entirely and the down-to-earth dramatic turns and realist decisions by his character result in a film which is up there with the most rewarding dramas to be released in recent memory and for a film which is just under two and a half hours, it seemed strange to be leaving the cinema by actually wanting more, the sign of a cracker if ever there was one.
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