Manchester by the Sea
Crit
Look, most of us do multiple stupid things ever day of our lives, and few carry any significant consequences (just as few of the smart things we do matter much). And for all of us, there's a stupidest thing ever (I remember mine: it involves alcohol and a motor vehicle), and most of us (including me) are lucky enough that even that stupidest thing had no consequences, or no major ones. Near the other end of the luck spectrum, some people's stupidest-ever things carry them away, so the consequences, while perhaps painful, are short-lived.
But at the very end of the bad-luck spectrum, the dumbest thing you ever did doesn't kill you. It just rips away everything that protects a human from pain, leaving you an animate raw nerve, an untouchable in every literal and figurative way. That's Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck), in writer-director Kenneth Lonergan's third, and third great, film.
I knew going in that this film was going to hurt. What I didn't know what how much it would make me laugh. Yes, the comic parts are mostly of the whistling-past-the-graveyard ilk, but they're no less hilarious--as in, you-miss-following-lines-because-the-big-Friday-night-crowd-you're-unaccustomed-to-being-part-of-is-laughing-that-loud hilarious--for that.
I came out of the theater thinking this was the best 100% Caucasian film of the year, but then I remembered Quincy Tyler Bernstine's early brief (and funny) appearance. Yes, I think Lonergan would admit that his great melting-pot film is yet to come (and what better time than the coming 4 years, though 4 years between films would be a rapid turnaround for him), but damn, he's good with the canvas he uses.
Trailer
- Split--M. Night Shyamalan goes psycho kidnap porn.
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