Casey Affleck is capable of displaying quiet, inner turmoil like few actors working today. Without saying anything, nor creating necessarily obvious facial expressions that capture his pain, his eyes stare blankly ahead, as if possessed by a ghost who's been haunting him forever. His state of mind is so numb to any affection that he would gladly engage in a pointless fight with two men rather than respond flirtatiously to a girl at a bar who's clearly interested in him.
After his older brother passes away due to heart failure, Affleck's Lee Chandler returns to the little hometown that is the source of a personal family tragedy which tore his family and marriage apart. His nephew, Patrick (Lucas Hedges), is left in his personal care, and as a parent who's lost his own children, Lee struggles to behave like a father figure to the sixteen-year old boy, whose main interests are womanizing and playing a guitar in a young band.
The performances here are very impressive: Casey is clearly the more talented actor in the Affleck family, and Michele Williams steals every scene she's in with raw, emotional energy that's become her staple of late. Director Kenneth Lonergan (who here appears in a brief cameo, as he does in all his movies), wisely uses classical music in lieu of an original score, and in that aspect the man is like the modern Stanley Kubrick, able to incorporate familiar tunes of the past to elevate the depth of despair that his beautifully shot and subtly directed scenes evoke.
There is much inner grief and pain in Manchester by the Sea, but don't let that dissuade you from seeing it. In a year dominated by more cheerful movies, this is tour de force drama.
A-
No comments:
Post a Comment