Grief isn't a mountain you climb; it’s more like a tide that never actually goes out. That's basically the thesis of the Manchester by the Sea film, a movie so bleak it makes most other dramas look like Saturday morning cartoons. People usually talk about it in terms of Casey Affleck’s Oscar win or that one scene at the police station—you know the one—but looking back on it now, there's a specific kind of honesty in the writing that we just don't see anymore. It doesn't give you a hug. It doesn't tell you everything is going to be okay. Honestly, it’s one of the few movies that admits some things are actually unfixable.
Kenneth Lonergan, the director and writer, has this weirdly specific talent for making everyday conversations feel both completely mundane and incredibly high-stakes. He wrote You Can Count on Me and Margaret, so he’s basically the king of "people talking over each other while their lives fall apart." But with this story, he tapped into something different. It’s the story of Lee Chandler, a guy working as a janitor in Quincy, Massachusetts, who has to return to his hometown after his brother, Joe, dies of congestive heart failure.
But the movie isn't really about Joe's death. It’s about the reason Lee left Manchester in the first place.
The Manchester by the Sea Film and the Myth of Closure
Most Hollywood movies are obsessed with "closure." We’ve been conditioned to expect a third act where the protagonist finally lets go of the past, sheds a symbolic tear, and moves toward a brighter future. Lonergan rejects that entirely. Lee Chandler is a man who is fundamentally broken by a mistake he made—leaving a fire screen off a fireplace after a night of heavy drinking, which resulted in the deaths of his three children.
The film uses a non-linear structure that’s kinda disorienting at first. You see Lee in the present, cold and aggressive, and then you see him in the past, messy but happy. The contrast is jarring. It’s not just a stylistic choice; it’s a representation of how trauma works. For Lee, the past isn't "back then." It’s happening right now, layered over every conversation he has with his nephew, Patrick.
Patrick is played by Lucas Hedges, and his performance is arguably just as vital as Affleck’s. He’s a teenager trying to navigate his father’s death while worrying about his band and his two girlfriends. Some critics initially found his character "too normal," but that’s the point. Grief doesn't stop you from being an annoying sixteen-year-old. It exists alongside the trivial stuff. There's a scene where Patrick has a panic attack because of some frozen chickens falling out of a freezer—it’s a delayed reaction to the idea of his father being kept in a morgue freezer because the ground is too frozen for burial. It’s messy. It’s weird. It’s real.
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Why the Police Station Scene Changed Everything
If you’ve seen the Manchester by the Sea film, you know the scene. Lee is being questioned by the police after the fire. They tell him he isn’t being charged because "you don't punish a man for forgetting to put a screen on his fireplace." And Lee, in that moment, realizes the world isn't going to give him the punishment he thinks he deserves. So, he tries to take matters into his own hands by grabbing a detective’s gun.
The sound design here is incredible because it goes silent, then shifts into that haunting Adagio in G Minor. It’s a moment of pure, unadulterated failure. Not just a failure of safety, but a failure of the self. Casey Affleck’s performance relies almost entirely on what he doesn’t do. He doesn't wail. He doesn't give a big monologue. He just looks like a man who has already died but hasn't realized he can stop walking yet.
The Technical Brilliance of Kenneth Lonergan
Lonergan’s script is a masterclass in "indirect" writing. Characters rarely say what they mean. They argue about where to eat or how to fix a boat motor when they’re actually arguing about who is going to take care of whom. This is how people in the Northeast actually communicate. There’s a stoicism that borders on the pathological.
- The Setting: Manchester-by-the-Sea isn't just a pretty backdrop. The cold is a character. The grey slush, the biting wind, the frozen ground that preventsJoe's burial—it all mirrors the emotional stasis of the characters.
- The Dialogue: Lonergan uses overlapping dialogue where people interrupt each other constantly. It’s chaotic and feels unscripted, even though it’s meticulously planned.
- The Score: Lesley Barber’s score uses choral music and classical arrangements that feel almost ecclesiastical, contrasting with the gritty, working-class reality of the visuals.
Michelle Williams has about ten minutes of total screen time, yet she’s the emotional center of the film's climax. The "street scene" where she encounters Lee and tries to apologize for the things she said during their divorce is almost unbearable to watch. She’s trying to open a door that Lee has spent years welding shut. Her line, "My heart was broken, and it's always gonna be broken, but I know yours is broken too," is the closest the movie gets to a "message," and even then, Lee can't handle it. He literally cannot be in the presence of that much raw emotion. He has to run away.
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Common Misconceptions About Lee’s Journey
A lot of people walk away from the Manchester by the Sea film feeling frustrated. They want Lee to stay and raise Patrick. They want him to move back into his brother’s house and find a way to live again. But that would be a lie.
The movie argues that some people are simply "too damaged" to be the heroes of a traditional story. When Lee tells Patrick, "I can't beat it," it's one of the most honest moments in cinema history. He isn't being selfish; he's being self-aware. He knows that his presence in Manchester is a poison, both to himself and potentially to Patrick.
There's a subtle detail people often miss: the arrangement for Patrick’s guardianship. Lee doesn't just abandon him. He finds a way to ensure Patrick is taken care of by George and Janine, the family friends. He sets up a trust. He does the "work" of a guardian without the "presence" of one. It’s a compromise. It’s the best he can do.
Legacy and the "New England Realism" Movement
Since its release in 2016, the film has become a benchmark for what people call "New England Realism." It’s in the same vein as The Fighter or In the Bedroom, but it strips away the genre tropes. There are no boxing matches or revenge plots here. It’s just the passage of time.
It’s also worth noting the production history. Matt Damon was originally supposed to star and direct. He’s the one who brought the idea to Lonergan. Because of scheduling conflicts with The Martian, Damon stepped back and let Affleck take the lead. It’s hard to imagine the movie working with Damon’s more "leading man" energy. Affleck has a specific kind of internalised vibration that makes Lee feel like a ticking time bomb that’s already gone off.
Critical Reception and Why It Holds Up
- Academy Awards: It won Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay.
- Rotten Tomatoes: It maintains a 96% rating, which is rare for a film this depressing.
- Box Office: For a small indie drama, it pulled in $79 million against an $8.5 million budget.
The reason it holds up is that it doesn't date itself with pop culture references. It’s a story about human hardware, not software. The way we process loss hasn't changed in a hundred years, and it won't change in the next hundred.
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How to Approach a Rewatch
If you’re going back to watch the Manchester by the Sea film, don't look for the plot. Look at the hands. Watch how Lee handles objects—the way he shovels snow, the way he fixes a pipe, the way he holds a beer. Everything is done with a mechanical precision that masks a total internal void.
Also, pay attention to the humor. It’s surprisingly funny. The banter between Patrick and his friends, or Lee’s awkward interactions with the women Patrick is trying to date, provides a necessary pressure valve. Without those laughs, the movie would be clinical. With them, it’s human.
Actionable Insights for Film Enthusiasts
If the themes of this movie resonated with you, there are a few ways to engage deeper with this specific style of storytelling:
- Study the Screenplay: Kenneth Lonergan’s script is available online. If you're a writer, look at how he formats "overlapping dialogue." It’s a specific technique where he uses brackets or dual columns to show people talking at once.
- Explore the "Grief Trilogy": To understand the evolution of this theme, watch You Can Count on Me (2000), Margaret (2011), and then Manchester by the Sea. You’ll see a progression in how Lonergan views family responsibility.
- Visit the Locations: If you’re ever in Massachusetts, the film was shot on location in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Gloucester, Essex, and Beverly. The "Manchester" of the film is a real place with a very specific, quiet dignity that the cinematography captures perfectly.
- Analyze the Score: Listen to Lesley Barber’s soundtrack independently. It’s a great example of how to use "counter-programming" in film music—using beautiful, soaring melodies to underscore scenes of intense, ugly pain.
The film is currently available on various streaming platforms like Amazon Prime (which distributed it). It’s not an "easy" watch, and it’s definitely not a "Friday night with popcorn" movie. But it is a necessary one. It validates the part of us that doesn't want to move on, the part that knows some things are simply lost forever. And strangely, there’s a lot of comfort in that honesty.
To truly appreciate the film's impact, watch the final scene again. Lee and Patrick are walking, tossing a ball. There’s no grand resolution. They’re just moving. Sometimes, just moving is the greatest victory you can hope for.