Review of Manchester by the Sea (2016) by Dirigiblepulp — 24 Feb 2017

A commendable exploration of grief without the trite, requisite, sanitized conclusions and "happy" endings that leave people feeling good in the short term but completely unchanged for the long term. Director Kenneth Lonergan wants to show the real depths to sadness and grief. This doesn't include wallowing in it but instead living with it in the most mundane ways possible.

In that sense, Casey Affleck is perfectly cast. Some actors transform for their roles, some actors are born only for certain roles they already fit. This is probably the latter, though it's no less remarkable for being so. This isn't Affleck playing himself, but instead doing a soul-search within himself to play a variation of the kind of characters he was born to play. We are all the better for it. Lucas Hedges and Michelle Williams also do great work.

Lonergan finds a way to capture without exclamation all the ways in which a person can be ruined, without even being a bad person, while still dealing with everyday life. He's changed, but the world hasn't, and it won't just for him. This sounds depressing, and it can be, and it sounds nihilistic, which it's not. There is light in this, if you look, which is really the key after all.