Review of Manchester by the Sea (2016) by Bill H — 14 Feb 2017

Sometime you just don't get it. Are you out of step? Is there a herd mentality that overcomes judgement? You look for someone to confirm your reactions, and all your friend's reactions, and yet all reputable sources are against you. You know your friends are the sophisticates of yore, but still it was a boring empty picture. You remember that you didn't quite get Antonioni or Bergman, but still you could see value and humanity in it. But, this was lifeless artifice, a run through before a performance. The edges of a drama like standing in the wings when just off screen the drama was happening. There were nice camera set ups, there was tracking, there was montage and flashbacks and music, and long shots and pregnant pauses, reflective moments, but noting with life in it. It did not even record life, but viewed it the way we view the lives of animals in a zoo. There is no life behind those bars, just animals without the drama and life of the forest. Here there is no life on the screen.

I wonder how such an empty film can be seen as such a masterpiece of melodrama. The movie screen is not for tableaus.