Manchester by the Sea depicts bittersweet moments


Director Keneth Lonergan gave a breath of fresh air to drama films with his new film Manchester by the Sea. Other films directed by Keneth Lonergan, You Can Count on Me and Margaret, were colored with the shades of death covering the lives of characters. The characters cope with fatal mistakes of their past, moving toward coveted release from all-consuming anguish.

Throughout the film, notions of grief and longing for redemption are placed at the center of the story. Native New Englander Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck), who left his hometown to escape from his disastrous past, works as a handyman and doesn’t seem to enjoy communicating with people around him. His solitary existence is interrupted by the news that his older brother, Joe (Kyle Chandler), has died due to a serious heart condition.

Lee becomes a guardian for his nephew Patrick (Ben O’Brien), an arrogant teenager whose mother is an alcoholic without custody of her son. Lee accepts his new role as a straightforward and thick-skinned man, who cares only about girls and his hockey stardom. The plot goes further with its sense of sorrow as it becomes clear from a series of flashbacks that Lee has a private and dark secret. The film slowly leads the audience closer to the undisclosed event that turned Lee’s family life into its mournful ashes.

Happier times from Lee’s past were shown abruptly, bolstering curiosity about the circumstances that forced him to leave his hometown and start a new life. Flashbacks showed Lee enjoying days with his brother and son, which were then ruined by Joe’s heart failure. Joe’s wife Elisa (Gretchen Mol) plunges herself into alcoholism due to her bitter resentment. Lee’s buried relationship with his wife Randi (Michelle Williams) is portrayed through a heartbreaking montage showing their life with three young children ending up in unbearable tragedy. 

Unlike other dramas, Manchester by the Sea does not offer a saving grace for its characters. The film revealed that people sometimes cannot choose how they should move on from the past. The experienced cast perfectly conveys this message, making the audience feel the burden of an irreversible and poignant past.

Michelle Williams was effective in playing a character with a heartbreaking inability to keep up with losses. Casey Affleck was strikingly sober, but surprisingly carefree and even humorous. His character, Lee, was a man in a state of ambivalence, with conflicting feelings deep inside.

The Massachusetts town is an appropriate setting for this shaded and modest drama, as it is shown as both blissful and bleak place. As the characters move further through the fog of their bittersweet memories, the gray sky of wintry Massachusetts and background score complement the carefully executed drama about people’s losses and their struggling to move on afterward.