Manchester by the Sea

With exaggeration and in big quotation marks it’s Nocturnal Animals for the lower middle-class or country people. It's slow, weaving and painful (in the spirit of Eastwood's films), playing out several plot levels and exposing painful life events and decisions, or the inability to cope with them, but it is more oversimplified and easier to read. The most interesting thing about it is that it is paradoxically so direct and non-cinematic, because half of the scenes are without music and with so much authenticity and energy that it feels like your next-door neighbour is living the story. A cinematic event, no doubt, just not for everyone and it will have to mature a bit more, but a must-see for film scholars. (04/02/2017)

Manchester-by-the-Sea isn’t really a village that I would like to visit, even though I normally like similar areas and I actively seek them out. But what can you do with people who look as if they had been taking Xanax for two years, surviving in their strange vacuum of nothingness. Well, and Casey Affleck is rooted in this world, and probably wants to get an Oscar nomination because he is the weirdest of the weirdest and in some scenes he literally jumps between emotions like a flea from one hair to another. It’s a pity, as under diferrent circumstances this film wouldn’t be bad. But its endless length and the strange behavior of the characters doesn’t simply make for a good movie and the few interesting scenes unfortunately can’t save the movie. (21/02/2017)

A film about human pain, guilt, failure, and the attempt to somehow cope with it all. It is pleasantly and cleverly cast, with Casey Affleck suiting his role as if Lonergan had written it specifically for him. I haven't seen enough of him to confidently say that he normally acts brilliantly, or if it was just a great casting choice. Unfortunately, Manchester by the Sea doesn't score as high with me as I expected because it only works partially. My attention was unilaterally drawn from the beginning to the end by Lee Chandler, while the director wanted to build the film on the relationship and confrontation between the uncle and nephew. However, Patrick as a teenager was not interesting to me, unfortunately. The film worked perfectly until Lee became a mystery to me, and I didn't understand all of the bitterness, emotional instability, and inaccessibility of his personality. The revelation should have come to me in the end. Nevertheless, I understand why there is so much talk about the film and why it is considered worthy of an Oscar nomination. Overall impression: 65%. (09/04/2017)

Lonergan is an amazing screenwriter. The compositionality of the film, the work with ordinariness, with economical dialogues, with what is to be shown up close, or what to observe from a distance through a hint - masterful. The directing struggles a bit with the exaggerated ceremony of selected moments, when Lonergan suddenly helps himself with a mournful Händel and decelerators. But he never takes its feet out from under it, in the best moments his focused and laconic leadership of the actors and watching the routine of the fading (and still present) tragedy is extremely strong. Manchester by the Sea has the ability to constantly slide toward pathos, but it never does so. It feels sparing, despite the fact that behind the main character is a drama almost ancient, behind which we can clearly perceive the script design. But Lonergan can handle it. He does not abuse misery, and the chemistry between Affleck, Hedges and the supporting characters is completely physically perceptible in every shot. A film about the difficult art of mourning, about the inability to accept wounds and return to where one cannot forget the past. I look forward to watching it again, and it’s the most impressive American indie since Boyhood. (27/01/2017)

A painful punch right to the heart. A film whose author must be on the same frequency as I, because I understood every scene. Everything was in its place, everything made sense. It’s been a long time since I felt 137 minutes passing so fast, even though on paper they should have dragged (and judging by the comments, they did drag for many people). (03/02/2017)