This week we spent some time at Manchester-By-The-Sea as we caught up with watching one of this year’s big Oscar Nominate films.
We follow Lee (Casey Affleck) a loner who has left his previous home and life in Manchester-By-The-Sea in Massachusetts, working as a handyman at an apartment complex in the nearby town of Quincy.
Lee has very minimal contact with those he does work for or meet, he also appears to have a short temper after swearing at one of those tenants who are not happy with the amount of work he needs to do.
This sees him being reprimanded by his boss, which results in him going out and getting drunk and starting a fight.
We then start to see flashbacks to earlier in his life, where he was married to Randi (Michelle Williams) and had strong relationships with friends as well as being a great Uncle to his brother (Kyle Chandler) Joe’s son, Patrick (Lucas Hedges).
We then learn from the flashbacks that the reason Lee is now living a solitary life is that he blames himself for a horrific personal tragedy in his past, which is why he is no longer married and not in contact with him family and friends.
All that changes when Lee receives an unexpected phone call to tell him Joe has passed away, heading back to Manchester-By-The-Sea to pay his last respects.
What happens next, changes his life completely when Joe has provided for Lee in his will, provided he becomes the guardian of his son, as he feels that he would be better off with him than his mother, Elise (Gretchen Mol) who has a problem with alcohol dependency which saw them get divorced.
Lee really is in a state of depression and does not want this challenge, and we see how he tries to deal with the situation, as he agrees to stay on until the end of Patrick’s school year.
Patrick, who is a member of many clubs and teams, as well as juggling 2 girlfriends clearly wants to stay put, rather than uproot to live with Lee and what follows is how the 2 come to the decision.
Along the way, Patrick will reconnect with his mother, now in a relationship with Jeffrey (Matthew Broderick) and also see Lee, adapt to being around so many people, including his brother’s good friend, Chandler (C.J. Wilson) as well as meeting up with his ex-wife.
This is a film worthy of its many Oscar nominations from writer/director Kenneth Lonergan and is well worth a viewing. The tragedy that Lee was involved in is truly heartbreaking and you really do wish he could get some real support rather than hide away and the film does highlight what a struggle living with depression is.
If we had one fault, which I am sure many will adore, many scenes dialogue is replaced by strong orchestral music pieces which we were not fond of, yet this takes nothing away from this powerful movie.
You can find the trailer at the film’s Facebook page here:
You can find the film at Amazon here:
Never miss a BMAF blog. Receive email notifications when new posts are published by entering your email address in the subscription box on the top right-hand side of this page.
You can also like us on Facebook for more film news and content www.facebook.com/barkingmadaboutfilms/