Manchester by the Sea

Two water scenes frame the narrative and establish the central character’s fall from grace and failure of redemption. The water scenes — like the title — are significant because they provide the serenity and beauty in counterpoise to the characters’ roiling emotions, anger and guilt. Manchester is the troubled human community that abuts the supportive sea. 

In the opening scene Lee, happy and carefree, frolics with his young nephew Patrick on brother Joe’s boat. In their play Lee teases Patrick that he, Lee, should be the person Patrick should choose as best able to help them survive on a desert isle — not the boy’s father. 

But the bulk of the film demonstrates the increasing gap between the competent Joe and the self destructive Lee. The film gradually reveals how the carefree Lee fell into the violent despair of his later life. Lee is broken when his drunken binge turns into the fire that kills his three children. He retreats into a life of menial chores and drunken, belligerent evenings. 

On Joe’s death, Lee struggles to escape his brother’s assignment to be Patrick’s guardian and trustee. Yet that first scene establishes the memories and the relationship that would make Patrick want Lee to be his guardian, regardless of his present state.

Handyman Lee can fix anything but himself. Although he recovers something of his earlier relationship with Patrick, Lee can’t bring himself to accept responsibility for him. “I can’t beat it,” he says, “I can’t beat it.” The “it” is his guilt and self-loathing that linger from his childrens’ death. 

Lee can’t accept his ex-wife’s impassioned forgiveness, precluding any chance of his  own peace and self-acceptance as well as hers. His violent outbursts against others hide/reveal his inability to forgive himself. When the police interview him about his children’s death, he is as much disappointed as surprised that they will not be punishing him. “You mean I can go?” “It’s no crime to forget to put back the fire screen.”

In the last shot Lee and Patrick sit on the pier fishing. They are together but apart — as they are in every one of their conversations when the language that should connect them separates them instead. Their elliptical conversations should be bridges but they only widen the gaping gap. At the end the men have a new camaraderie and closeness — but it is only partial and late. It rests upon Lee having finalized his detachment from Patrick and arranged for another couple to adopt thim. 

Young Patrick’s cheeky but fond insults contrast to Lee’s inability to express sentiments at all. Instead of openly admitting he’s rented a flat with an extra room for Patrick to visit, Lee says it’s to provide more room “for my shit.” To his ex-wife’s desperate apologies Lee can only hide behind a shell of stammering. Patrick shows more aplomb in handling the nervous chatter of his mother, when she briefly flirts with the notion of having him come live with her and her new Christian fiance (played by Lonergan’s standby for flawed righteousness, Matthew Broderick).     

The water scenes — set in summer flashbacks, against Lee’s winter present — emblematize the grace from which Lee falls and which his failure to forgive himself prevents recovering. A gull at the end of the credits suggests the soaring spirit that Lee has lost. As the most poignant loss is played against a powerful theme from Handel’s Messiah, the later Lee’s only joyful scene in the present plays against a song that merges romantic and spiritual love, “I’m Beginning to See the Light.” 

  As usual Lonergan assumes an emblematic cameo himself. In You Can Count on Me (2000) he played the minister who posits the film’s central theme: “Can you believe that your life is important?” That question hangs over Lee here as it did over James Franco’s earlier hero. Here Lonergan plays the passer-by who hears Lee swearing at Patrick. “Good parenting,” he snaps, provoking Lee’s profane response. As it happens, Lee could be Patrick’s effective father-substitute, if only he could reset his life with self-acceptance.  

  This is a very brave film. It takes courage to unfold at such a languorous pace, with such spare and pointed music, with dialogue that leaves so much unspoken and such nuanced performances. This year we’ve had few scenes as rich as Casey Affleck’s performance after Joe’s funeral, especially the compound inflections of his glance when he meets his ex-wife’s new man. Affleck deserves the Oscar hype. 
     So does Lonergan for daring to tell a story of contemporary guilt and shame where no character finds an easy redemption and the hero a bare gesture towards one. Occasionally fishing with your nephew is a far cry from assuming the responsibility he wants and needs you to.