Review of Manchester by the Sea (2016) by Zhi L — 03 Mar 2017

To be honest, I did not really have great interest with this movie at very first, I just know it nominated for this year's Oscar and received a lot good comments before I watched the movie. The reason why I watch this movie is very simple, because I traveled to Manchester in the UK last August, I want to try my luck to see if I can find some familiar scenes in the movie, but actually until I finished watching the movie then I realized the story was happened in America not the UK, how stupid I am.

It is not easy to understand the acts of the actor at beginning so it made me feel a little boring, he always do some crazy things, always fighting with some stranger, for example, he shout at his customer, he suddenly got close to two guys who were chatting in a pub and he punched them without any reason, you see, it sounds how ridiculous, but now I think this is a smart way to excite audience's curiosity about the leading actor , it will make the audience to wonder that what happened to the actor, why he will do those kind of strange things.

With the story progressed, I learned that the actor lost his three children and divorced, he also became the guardian of his nephew after his brother's death. Now I guess I understand a little about his behaviour in the beginning. He was lived in the guilty of the mistake he committed. He wanted to find a way to forget this, or he just wanted to find a way to avoid thinking this, so he fought with people in the pub, he fought with a stranger who pass by him. He was trying to be a good uncle, a good guardian when his nephew lived with him, he wanted to get out from the past, but it was too hard for him to overcome the memory and the shadow from past. Until he came across his ex-wife and his wife told him how sorry and how regret the words she said before to him, he cried finally. I know he was forgave by his ex-wife, but the hard part is he do not forgive himself.

No any fancy part of the movie, it is just a very very plain story, but the story do happens every day in our life, it may happens to you, it may happens to our friend or our relative, that's the point which moved audience because everyone can feel the feeling of the leading actor. Sometimes we will comfort others just let it go, it is always easier said than done, but we do know how hard it is when happen to ourselves. This is our real life.