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View Full Version : Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)



Ezee E
09-10-2016, 12:12 AM
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IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4034228/?ref_=nv_sr_1)

Ezee E
09-10-2016, 12:30 AM
Of course it's good. What's surprising is just how well it displays grief, sadness, longing, regret.... And pieces it together ever so perfectly to me. The scene that the poster displays (which strangely is in a neighborhood block, not by the sea) is one of the saddest scenes I've ever seen, and the performances are so good there. Too often, these type of scenes display excellent dialog, wherein this one truly has two people who don't know what to say, and it comes out as mumbles, sounds, and held-back tears. It's brilliant, and quite like this throughout.

Henry Gale
09-15-2016, 12:47 AM
Um.. yeah, pretty much a masterpiece.

For better or worse (for my tear ducts), and this is becoming something a theme this TIFF, but maybe more than anything else I've seen at the festival, this absolutely destroyed me. I got up at the end of the credits and still saw about a dozen of people still visibly distraught and/or dabbing away tears. And it's all from things that feel so authentic, humanly messy, and entirely earned by Lonergan and every breath of the performances.

Similar to Everybody Wants Some!!, the only disappointment I had was suddenly realizing it was to coming to an end and instantly bumming me out that it had to be over at all.

Ivan Drago
09-15-2016, 03:44 PM
Fuck, I'm ready for this.

What's the consensus on Margaret? I feel like that flew under the radar the year it came out.

Pop Trash
09-15-2016, 05:05 PM
Fuck, I'm ready for this.

What's the consensus on Margaret? I feel like that flew under the radar the year it came out.

I think it's one of the best films of the 21st Century and my favorite film about post 9/11 America/Planet Earth (second would be 25th Hour...and both of these are great specifically because they are not directly *about* 9/11 itself).

Henry Gale
11-15-2016, 12:38 AM
I think about this movie so often, and it just guts me every time.

And then I think about how legitimately funny it also is, and it all feels just as strong, only healing.

Such a perfect, beautiful movie. If it's anywhere near you this weekend, do whatever you can to see it.

Henry Gale
11-25-2016, 03:58 AM
Got to see it again tonight. Almost didn't want to go since it was offered to me so last minute, and I mostly just didn't know if I could put myself through the tidal wave of emotions again. At the end of the day, I'm like "C'mon, this might be your favourite movie of the year. How can you pass up the opportunity to see it on the big screen with an audience again?"

But what really stood out on this second viewing was just the amount of humour I mentioned in the post above. I still cried to the point of near dehydration, but I probably laughed even more this time.

I now officially can't think of a more impressive performance this year than Affleck's. He's one of those actors who can convey just as much in silence and stillness as he can when he's strongly emoting. The unfinished sentences, mumbling, and messy, unresolved emotions of the scene Ezee mentioned in the first post.. Affleck, Williams and Lonergan can't be given enough credit for just how extraordinary a piece of filmmaking that is alone. And there are two other great hours.

Can't say enough about this.

Pop Trash
11-30-2016, 06:18 PM
Very, very good. It's the type of film that if I read a plot outline, I would think it was overly schematic with the misery pile-ups, but Lonergan is so good with the minutia and humor that everything feels earned.

I think my only nitpicks are a cameo scene by a well known actor (not a huge surprise since he is in all of Lonergan's films) feels undeveloped and a little too "lol Christians amirite?!" and the bar fights felt like they came out of Road House, but just about everything else is spot on.

It speaks volumes about Lonergan's talents as a dramatist and writer that this is his 'worst' film for me, but easily one of the best American films of the year.

Ezee E
11-30-2016, 08:24 PM
Very, very good. It's the type of film that if I read a plot outline, I would think it was overly schematic with the misery pile-ups, but Lonergan is so good with the minutia and humor that everything feels earned. I think my only nitpicks are a cameo scene by a well known actor (not a huge surprise since he is in all of Lonergan's films) feels undeveloped and a little too "lol Christians amirite?!" and the barfights felt like they came out of Road House, but just about everything else is spot on. It speaks volumes about Lonergan's talents as a dramatist and writer that this is his 'worst' film for me, but easily one of the best American films of the year.

The Telluride crowd also loled at the cameo.

Henry Gale
11-30-2016, 11:39 PM
The Telluride crowd also loled at the cameo.

Oh, same at TIFF and then my screening last week. I'm not sure that that reaction is a totally bad thing though?
The sequence is already played for maximum unease and predictable awkwardness leading up to it, so the stunt-casting nature of Broderick coming on-screen worked for me in the sense that even before we know what the character is really like, we immediately go "Oh boy, it's this fuckin' guy...."

Not to say he's how we perceive actual Matthew Broderick, just that we already get a sense of the sort of guy we've all probably come across in our own lives that we know his character is bound to be. It's an easy shorthand for a character that's only going to get one scene.

Having said that, I still don't love him being in it, since he really is suddenly the most recognizable face and it's bound to take people out of the movie, even intentionally. Maybe it would've felt different if Matt Damon had remained the lead, but with the junior Affleck, things still feel relatively normal, as often as we might've seen him and some of the rest of the cast over the years.

Regarding the bar fights, it worked well for me as a cyclical motif and recognizable crutch of a cry for help for the character than anything I could relate to, but I guess it is hard to make those sorts of things not feel flashy or cliche on-screen, likely because of the sorts of movie you mentioned that've used them the most in the past, Pop.

(The above spoilered stuff is broad but I'd rather not have known them going in. Having said that, the name of the "cameo" is in the opening credits..)

Pop Trash
12-06-2016, 06:05 AM
Having watched this last week and just attended a memorial for the 30+ people that died in the Oakland fire a few miles south of my place, this film is having a weird effect on me. I can't stop thinking about it. All I can say is that I'm glad I saw this before that incident, otherwise I would be a sniveling mess watching this. Grief is such a strange, fucked up thing. Spoiler tags for reasons obvious to anyone who has seen it.

TGM
12-09-2016, 09:55 PM
So I know this is the second movie in a row I'm saying this about, but holy shit. Talk about a gut punch of a movie. Watched it this morning, and it strikes such a chord that pretty much all day I've been on the verge of tears just thinking about it. This was incredible.

Between this and Nocturnal Animals, two of the best movies I've seen all year released this weekend, and you really can't go wrong either way.

number8
12-12-2016, 03:01 PM
It's the type of film that if I read a plot outline, I would think it was overly schematic with the misery pile-ups, but Lonergan is so good with the minutia and humor that everything feels earned.

It's funny thinking about the trailer (which I know by heart by now since it played before every other movie I saw in the past couple of months) in how it kinda tried to make it about something else entirely, and the real story is completely missing from it.

This is just excellent and superbly told, but it does hit a similar note and approach as Margaret, especially on the surface level of "difficult people deal with an unexpected death they're responsible for." Lonergan is deadly with his actors, though. Affleck and O'Brien are so intensely specific in how they come across externally and internally. It's ridiculous how note-perfect these performances are. Michelle Williams comes across as a complete character before and after the incident, showing years of pain and growth and stability, with like a total of what, seven minutes of screen time? Ridiculous.

Henry Gale
12-13-2016, 05:37 AM
Lonergan is deadly with his actors, though. Affleck and O'Brien are so intensely specific in how they come across externally and internally. It's ridiculous how note-perfect these performances are.

Hedges? Contrary to popular believe, not every redhead heard with a New England accent is automatically related to Conan. :p

Interestingly, I realized his first big role was as the bully in Moonrise Kingdom, and the first of Patrick's two girlfriends we meet is Kara Hayward from that film as well. (Not to mention her and the other young lead from Moonrise, Jared Gilman, are back together in Jarmusch's Paterson.) The actress who plays his other girlfriend is apparently Mikhail Baryshnikov's daughter?!


Michelle Williams comes across as a complete character before and after the incident, showing years of pain and growth and stability, with like a total of what, seven minutes of screen time? Ridiculous.

I've thought about this so much. Between viewings I seriously wondered if I had forgotten sequences that she was in because she able to make such an impact under Lonergan's design of the film. She has similar screentime to Chandler, who we never actually see in the present of the story. Say she does win major awards over the next little while, would this go down as one of the all-time shortest rewarded performances? (Next to, say, Judi Dench.)

number8
12-13-2016, 01:58 PM
Oh, the kid who plays the younger Patrick in the flashback scenes is Ben O'Brien. I got them confused.

He's good too, though.

Ivan Drago
12-13-2016, 03:22 PM
At first I honestly felt let down by the ending, but then the more I thought about it, it actually hit me harder than anything else in the film. The whole time I was expecting some big climatic scene between Lee and Patrick that resulted in Lee finally agreeing to be Patrick's guardian...but it never came. Lee's grief and internal pain were just that impossible to overcome. All the performances on display are fantastic with their naturalism, the dialogue is real and authentic, the film's sense of humor acts as a perfect complement for the heavier moments...there's not much else to say about it other than what everyone else has said, it's a fantastic film. The more I think about it, the more I love it...and the harder it hits me.

number8
12-13-2016, 03:36 PM
It's actually the happiest ending, really. The film carefully shows you all the ways why Lee would be a terrible guardian, and that Joe's decision to just spring this on them was crazy. There's no question to me that Patrick's best off living with George's family. The character growth is Lee's ability to make a decision that's best for both of them, and more importantly, communicate it well enough for Patrick to understand and agree with him. That's plenty, given that communicating their feelings seems to be a cyclical issue for the men in their family.

dreamdead
12-25-2016, 04:58 PM
Very, very good. I can see this one continuing to grow as memory anchors itself to the two exemplary scenes--the fire and the reunion with Williams.

I'm curious whether anyone felt the reveal that Lee Chandler had consumed coke and other drugs that night as fundamentally necessary to the plot? Nothing else suggested that extreme of a dependency and abuse on drugs and I'm curious why Lonergan didn't just opt for more booze. Also, I couldn't get a good read on the party going on at that scene. Was Joe there as well or just someone who looked like him?

Idioteque Stalker
12-25-2016, 05:55 PM
Joe was there.

Obviously they're being irresponsible, but the party is also somewhat charming and quaint--the type of thing that group of men would otherwise remember quite fondly. My impression was that coke is pretty commonplace, and Lee simply mentions it in the interest of giving full disclosure. It's also tricky to draw a drugs=fire conclusion because it is, at least in part, the responsible decision of not driving that leads to the accident.

number8
12-25-2016, 07:17 PM
Yeah, pop culture tends to portray cocaine as an extreme, very addictive, life destroying drug, compared to the way it's more commonly used in real life. I'm pretty sure Lonergan's intention wasn't to paint the men as reprobate drug users. It's more that it's the likeliest explanation of why he stayed up and was motivated enough to go to the store. If he was just super drunk he would just pass out.

Ezee E
12-25-2016, 08:50 PM
Yeah, pop culture tends to portray cocaine as an extreme, very addictive, life destroying drug, compared to the way it's more commonly used in real life. I'm pretty sure Lonergan's intention wasn't to paint the men as reprobate drug users. It's more that it's the likeliest explanation of why he stayed up and was motivated enough to go to the store. If he was just super drunk he would just pass out.

This. It's never mentioned again either if I remember right. I don't think it's even seen.

DavidSeven
12-29-2016, 09:42 PM
A solid story, for sure, but I'm starting to wonder if Lonergan's style just isn't my jam. To me, his direction accomplishes the rare feat of being simultaneously uninteresting and showy. Casey Affleck is fine as an especially one-note version of Casey Affleck. And for all the praise that has come this film's way for its human drama, I'm not sure it felt especially honest to me. In Margaret, I felt Lonergan came across as being more interested in specific ideas than capturing genuine and nuanced human reactions. I feel the same here, though to a far lesser extent. The much lauded Michelle Williams scene was a stellar performance-reel segment, but it felt over-the-top and unrealistic as a piece of writing. I give her and Lonergan a lot of credit, however, for crafting a relatively full character in a very limited amount of time. On the other hand, Gretchen Mol's character seemed as though she should be far more interesting than she ended up being.

Lucas Hedges's naturalistic performance and his character's sub-story was the film's strongest element. This creation was less cerebral, not overly baked. As opposed to the film's protagonist, there's less sense that it was workshopped to death, and thank goodness his presence was there to eventually provide a reprieve to Affleck's overtly conscious take on Lee Chandler.

It's a good, solid piece of drama. Some aspects worked better for me than others. Ultimately, I'm glad it exists, but it just didn't strike as many chords as I was hoping.

number8
01-25-2017, 03:56 PM
"Do you smell something burning, Daddy?"

This is by far my least favorite part of the movie. Out of place dream sequences suck, but even worse is when they're redundant. He wakes up and panics about a real life fire. That should have been enough as a major character moment.


- Since Affleck lowgears his performance and gives out nothing, almost every other actor overplays their energy level to make up for the deficit. Especially CJ Wilson (George) and Michelle Williams (Randi). I didn't believe anything anybody did in this movie outside of Affleck. It's like nobody is in synch. The scene with Williams at the end is terrible. Williams feels the camera on her and decides to go full throttle because nobody is stopping her.

- I liked Lucas Hedges, the kid, but really? I didn't believe the entire conception of his character. The dude's father dies after a long illness and he barely skips a beat before he goes back to his regular life. That didn't strike me as true, either, although his scenes do keep the movie from becoming unrelentingly grim.

Both of these points seem like a misunderstanding of what the film wanted to do with them (if not, it isn't coming across in your criticism). The former is deliberately a choice to contrast Lee, as a point of alienation. The latter is clearly meant to be part of the kid's need to fake some control and convince others (but especially Lee) a facade of independence. Hence the panic attack scene, and the subplot about the alcoholic mother. The whole schtick of the movie is showing these two men from the same family engaging in behaviorally different, but fundamentally same kind of damaging emotional suppression, with their victory at the end of the movie being their marginal acknowledgement of it.

Dukefrukem
02-09-2017, 02:40 AM
The screenplay is quite good- I loved the way it is structured; the way the dialog plays out, telling the story. It's like a river of information. There's also a lot of dark humor; the shots of Lee driving back and forth to pick up Pat.

Hated the ending though. Would never watch again. It's no Good Will Hunting that's for sure.

Rico
02-11-2017, 09:01 AM
It's perfectly crafted, but just not my cup of tea. Two of the least pleasant hours of cinema from the past year.

Peng
02-11-2017, 11:58 AM
Well, that just about destroyed me. I am glad to have the theater to myself (I had a day off and it was the first showing) because I was having almost-Michelle Williams-sized emotional reaction at two or three points.

Rico
02-15-2017, 12:40 PM
That Michelle Williams scene just rings false. It's pure fantasy. Anyone who has ever been dumped, secretly wishes that person would come crawling back to them. But it just doesn't make sense. If you look at their relationship before the fire she is miserable. All she does is nag him, and all he does is drink. This was already a doomed relationship.

Dukefrukem
02-15-2017, 01:05 PM
That Michelle Williams scene just rings false. It's pure fantasy. Anyone who has ever been dumped, secretly wishes that person would come crawling back to them. But it just doesn't make sense.

From personal experience this is 100% false. (x2)

Peng
02-15-2017, 01:30 PM
Wow, that is a completely different take of their past from me. I liked that Williams created quite a feeling of full character from those few scenes that expand beyond them. In the first, she was just a little exasperated (and with a big flu) from Affleck joking around, but hardly miserable, while in the crucial one she's just pissed off to be woken in the middle of the night. Around that bare thread of flashbacks I sensed quite a lot of fondness between them. What I get from the present scene between them is more about her enormous guilt at having moved on while he can't, and her feeling that she contributed a big part of this on him during the divorce.

Ezee E
02-15-2017, 11:44 PM
That Michelle Williams scene just rings false. It's pure fantasy. Anyone who has ever been dumped, secretly wishes that person would come crawling back to them. But it just doesn't make sense. If you look at their relationship before the fire she is miserable. All she does is nag him, and all he does is drink. This was already a doomed relationship.

There's a lot more going on between them than a simple breakup, and this post makes no sense at all.

transmogrifier
02-16-2017, 02:39 AM
There's a lot more going on between them than a simple breakup, and this post makes no sense at all.

Especially because (a) it is obviously not Lee's fantasy that she come crawling back to him, seeing as he can't even process what she is saying and it doesn't bring him any relief at all, (b) she is not crawling back to him in the first place, and (c) in no way does the movie present her as miserable before the turn of events.

It's such a weird misreading of what is going on.

Overall, this is very good, with an excellent balance of humor and bone-deep grief. However, Lonergan really is a sloppy filmmaker - it worked for Margaret because the baggy editing and thundering music cues dovetailed nicely with the main character, a teenage girl who is all over the place emotionally. Here, some of the digressions work (like the drummer; it neatly gives the environment layering), but the editing has moved closer to inept than to impressionistic (like the pointless extra shot of Lonergan's cameo) and he's still not really sure where to put the camera. And the opera music is actively alienating.

BUT: like his other two films, he knows how to tap genuine emotion and to set up scenarios in which rich characters can spark off each other.

Grouchy
03-01-2017, 01:13 PM
This is a superior drama, I think, that shows a deep understanding of character and specially dialogue. I like how most of the key dramatic moments also have some dark humor going on that flows naturally from the performances and the banter. Affleck totally deserved his award. Lonergan's strenght is writing and not visuals but I found the editing of the film works very well with the movie's themes - it's overly long and exhausting but so are the aftermaths of a death in the family. The fire development, which in a lesser filmmaker's hands would feel like a soap opera or a corny melodrama, was very natural here, and there was a detail in that scene (the nurses who failed to raise the stretcher) which was very bold in its gruesomeness.

I agree there are some details I disliked, and the dream sequence was one of them. But part of me thought, even as the scene played out, that it would have worked a lot better if the two girls had remained silent instead of uttering a Horror movie line.

Dukefrukem
03-01-2017, 01:31 PM
Remind me what the dream sequence was again?

Btw, I said the same thing about dark humor. So I agree!

Grouchy
03-01-2017, 02:52 PM
Remind me what the dream sequence was again?
Lee burns the sauce and falls asleep in front of the TV and in the dream (a very short one) he sees the two girls ask him "Dad, can't we see we are burning?"

I have a tiny wee doubt about the legal consequences of the fire. The cops tell him they're not going to crucify him, but surely in a situation like this there's a long trail and probably some jail time, right? I'm not really knowledgeable about US law.

number8
03-01-2017, 04:27 PM
I have a tiny wee doubt about the legal consequences of the fire. The cops tell him they're not going to crucify him, but surely in a situation like this there's a long trail and probably some jail time, right? I'm not really knowledgeable about US law.

The way it works is that cops write a police report then send it to the District Attorney's office, and prosecutors there decide if they should file criminal charges. If they do, then the trial process would start. The scene in the police station was them letting Lee know that they decided not to charge him with anything because they feel bad for him. If that's what they decide, then there's nothing else to do.

Morris Schæffer
03-01-2017, 04:54 PM
So cool and weird to suddenly see Ferris Bueller.

great movie though.