Many of the people commenting here are disparaging because MBS is not a comic book action film. One commenter actually suggested you see Star Wars instead. Just because an individual doesn't like the genre does not make this a bad film. But this is a bad film.
To make a film like this work, the acting must be brilliant, compelling, overwhelming. None of that happened here and the fact that Casey Afflect won an award for this mess tells you just how much the MBA's have taken over Hollywood. For a brilliant sensitive film with nearly the same base plot watch Waterland with Jeremy Irons and Sinead Cusack. You will come away with a clear vision of two people stuck in a devastation they cannot escape. I would never consider the 90's the golden age of Hollywood but more and more it looks to be one of the last significant decades of salient filmmaking.
In the hands of a more nuanced director, this film might have risen to good. Instead, it reads like an offish attempt to turn melodrama into significance. The music is appallingly inappropriate and heavy handed. It turns the pivotal moment in the film into a cast off from the Godfather and blunts the drama unfolding on the screen to yawn-worthy. Elsewhere, it brashly proclaims what we are supposed to think and feel as if what is on the screen is not enough.
Others have commented on the scene where the chicken falls from the freezer. It's not funny. It's pitiful. But the young actor playing the role is so mediocre and the scene is so poorly directed we have no idea if what is happening is even genuine. Saying he doesn't like his father being frozen until spring is not the same as feeling it. And in this type of film, he must feel it or it doesn't work. Up to this point we've seen so little emotion from him, overt or subtle, about his father's death it almost seems like he doesn't care.
The takeaway from this film is supposed to be a portrait of a man so lost he can't escape his trauma to even care for a beloved nephew. Try to find it. It's not there and that is in large part due to Mr. Afflect's performance. He turns his character into a stereotype of stupidity, alcohol, and loss that neither engages nor compels. When he is not staring dully ahead, he pounds people in bars for no apparent reason. You may ask why? Me too. I have no idea why because Mr. Affleck never lets us in on the reason. The cast largely seems to have escaped from a tacky 70's sitcom to find themselves in a real life they have never been written to fully understand. The film itself is filled with moments of non-significance repeated over and over for an imagined dull-witted viewer to make sure they get the point.
Lastly, why was this film called Manchester by the Sea? The town, as the story was told, had absolutely nothing to do with the story. We didn't get any sort of feel for Manchester. It wasn't a character in the story. It didn't impact anything that happened so why name the film after it? This was a very sloppy heavy-handed attempt to create an Oscar worthy picture. If I didn't know better I'd think it was something software generated by a computer in a first attempt to see if the creation of films could be automated. Unless you're into how not to do this well, I'd skip it.
To make a film like this work, the acting must be brilliant, compelling, overwhelming. None of that happened here and the fact that Casey Afflect won an award for this mess tells you just how much the MBA's have taken over Hollywood. For a brilliant sensitive film with nearly the same base plot watch Waterland with Jeremy Irons and Sinead Cusack. You will come away with a clear vision of two people stuck in a devastation they cannot escape. I would never consider the 90's the golden age of Hollywood but more and more it looks to be one of the last significant decades of salient filmmaking.
In the hands of a more nuanced director, this film might have risen to good. Instead, it reads like an offish attempt to turn melodrama into significance. The music is appallingly inappropriate and heavy handed. It turns the pivotal moment in the film into a cast off from the Godfather and blunts the drama unfolding on the screen to yawn-worthy. Elsewhere, it brashly proclaims what we are supposed to think and feel as if what is on the screen is not enough.
Others have commented on the scene where the chicken falls from the freezer. It's not funny. It's pitiful. But the young actor playing the role is so mediocre and the scene is so poorly directed we have no idea if what is happening is even genuine. Saying he doesn't like his father being frozen until spring is not the same as feeling it. And in this type of film, he must feel it or it doesn't work. Up to this point we've seen so little emotion from him, overt or subtle, about his father's death it almost seems like he doesn't care.
The takeaway from this film is supposed to be a portrait of a man so lost he can't escape his trauma to even care for a beloved nephew. Try to find it. It's not there and that is in large part due to Mr. Afflect's performance. He turns his character into a stereotype of stupidity, alcohol, and loss that neither engages nor compels. When he is not staring dully ahead, he pounds people in bars for no apparent reason. You may ask why? Me too. I have no idea why because Mr. Affleck never lets us in on the reason. The cast largely seems to have escaped from a tacky 70's sitcom to find themselves in a real life they have never been written to fully understand. The film itself is filled with moments of non-significance repeated over and over for an imagined dull-witted viewer to make sure they get the point.
Lastly, why was this film called Manchester by the Sea? The town, as the story was told, had absolutely nothing to do with the story. We didn't get any sort of feel for Manchester. It wasn't a character in the story. It didn't impact anything that happened so why name the film after it? This was a very sloppy heavy-handed attempt to create an Oscar worthy picture. If I didn't know better I'd think it was something software generated by a computer in a first attempt to see if the creation of films could be automated. Unless you're into how not to do this well, I'd skip it.