Manchester By The Sea (15)

TWO of the best films nominated for this year's Baftas sit at polar extremes of the emotional spectrum. The musical La La Land (reviewed last week) couldn’t be more uplifting; Manchester By The Sea is one of the saddest films you’ll ever see.

Originally a playwright, Kenneth Lonergan made his name in Hollywood as the screenwriter of the De Niro/Billy Crystal comedy Analyze This. Yet his own films as writer/director are serious: the dysfunctional family drama You Can Count On Me; Margaret, about a teenage girl’s awkward attempts to deal with guilt; and now this account of a family torn apart by grief.

Too few and far between, these films are thoughtful, meticulous, sometimes surprisingly funny, as well as gut-wrenchingly true.

Manchester by the Sea isn’t set in Northern England, but Massachusetts. It opens with two contrasting views of its central character, Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck). The first sees him on a fishing boat off the coast of his hometown, a warm, funny guy, keeping his young nephew company while his older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) is at the wheel. In the second, he’s working as a janitor in Boston, unmoved by his drudgery, with an introverted, surly demeanour that can break out into drunken violence.

Lonergan has immediately established his narrative structure, which will skilfully flit between Lee’s solitary present, and a few years earlier when he was living in Manchester with his wife Randi (Michelle Williams) and three children. And the obvious question is, what happened?

In the present, Joe dies of heart disease and Lee returns to Manchester to deal with the arrangements. To his horror, the will states him as guardian of the now teenage Patrick (Lucas Hedges). This puts uncle and nephew at odds, the boy wishing to remain in Manchester, Lee intending to leave again as soon as possible.

The ensuing drama works on two levels: the tussle between uncle and nephew over how to proceed, and Lee’s internal struggle with his memories and what we come to learn is an indescribable reason for grief.

Whether one guesses what happened to make Lee leave his home, or not, when the reason is revealed it’s in the form of a brilliantly orchestrated and emotionally devastating sequence. Suddenly Lee’s extreme inability to connect makes terrible sense.

That said, his duty towards the boy does bring him to life, to a degree. The scenes between Lee and Patrick almost serve as light relief, the pair bickering as only family members can, sometimes with a heavy dose of graveyard humour.

The likeable Hedges works very well alongside Affleck, balancing outward show with inner turmoil – the lippy teenager’s familiar obsessions (girls, his band) never concealing the fact that he’s just lost his dad.

Patrick’s absent mother provides a bubbling subplot. And informing everything is a pitch-perfect portrait of a tight-knit, working class community, in which accents are spot on and actors really seem to be freezing for their art.

But the focus is Affleck. Since coming to prominence as a comedian in Oceans 11, he’s turned into a heavyweight dramatic actor, in such films as The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford and Gone Baby Gone. He seems unable to give a bum note, and is mesmerising here as a decent man carrying too much tragedy on his shoulders. His key scene with Williams, a masterclass in inarticulate angst, is unforgettable.

At one point Lee admits that “I can’t beat it”. While there’s hope that he may, Lonergan’s work has the sort of authenticity that won’t offer neat happy endings if they simply don’t apply.

Also released:

Live By Night (15)

While Casey Affleck excels in Manchester by the Sea, his big brother has an off day with this would-be gangster epic. And since Ben Affleck is writer, producer, director and star, he only has himself to blame.

Affleck is Joe Coughlin, a disillusioned WWI soldier who returns to Boston

determined to be an “outlaw” and just in time for Prohibition. Adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane, the story charts Coughlin’s efforts to retain some sort of moral code while climbing the criminal ladder. But Affleck’s attempt to portray a gangster as a sympathetic figure doesn’t wash, and interest drip-feeds away at an alarming rate.

Underworld: Blood Wars (15)

Fifth instalment in the action horror series, starring Kate Beckinsale as a vampire at the centre of the endless war between vampires and werewolves.

The Young Offenders (15)

Irish comedy inspired by a true story, this concerns two teenage lads from Cork who set off on a road trip in search of a missing bale of cocaine.