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Manchester By The Sea Written Review

Eddie Williams

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Eddie here. Tonight I'm reviewing the 2016 drama film, Manchester By The Sea directed by Kenneth Lonergan (writer of Analyze This and Analyze That) and stars Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, and Matthew Broderick. After the sudden death of Lee Chandler, older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler), Lee (Casey Affleck) has come to terms that he has been named sole custody of his teenage nephew, Patrick. Taking a leave of absence from his job in Boston, Lee makes his return to Manchester, a small fishing village where his family has lived for generations. In Manchester, Lee is forced to deal with a tragic past that has separated him from his wife Randy (Michelle Williams) and the community he was born in. Now when I saw the trailer to this film, I felt that it probably wasn't for me until I read more about it and saw a ton of praise for this film, so I decided to check it out to see what the hype was all about. After watching this film, I found it to be watchable but with a ton of flaws. Getting to my pros first, I did like the premise that it was going for and I thought it was a beautifully shot film. I really enjoyed the beautiful New England setting. I thought Casey Affleck's character and the nephew Patrick had great chemistry together. I did enjoy the majority of the performances and I love Casey Affleck as an actor, but at times I felt like he didn't want to be in this film. Casey was very bland with his lines and he barely shows any emotion, which killed me feeling any type of emotion I should have felt during those tragic scenes. Well I guess you can say he does have that "screw my life" attitude, but I felt that this film should have shown more of his emotional side because there's some very sad stuff that happens throughout and his attitude kind of killed the mood for me even though I still felt bad for his character. In my opinion, Affleck shouldn't have won the Best Actor award for this film. Also, this film made some errors where some of their extras look way too much like extras and it ended up making some awkward cringe-worthy scene. It has two different plots going on throughout the story; one about his tragic past and the other taking place in present times with his nephew which I enjoyed, but you have to pay close attention so you don't get confused. My last complaint for this film has to be the score and where it was placed in certain scenes because there was a scene that had an uplifting opera score mixing with a tragic scene that didn't blend well at all. They also had one piece that seriously played way too damn long and it started to annoy me. Anyways, I have more pros and cons, but I'd end up giving too much away and this is a spoiler-free review. The best I can say is go check out this film for yourself and if you liked it, then hey that's absolutely cool. Any opinion is welcome here, but as for me I felt like this film is a one-and-done experience. I'm going to give Manchester By The Sea a 5 /10.

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