Man-cheese-ter By The Brie
Manchester By The Sea stars Casey Affleck as Lee Chandler, a sullen and arcane janitor from Quincy, Massachusetts. Chandler, after the death of his brother, takes on the responsibility of his nephew, Patrick Chandler played by Lucas Hedges, as guardian.
Firstly, Best Actor? Really? Affleck plays a very stoic character that, at times, comes off as mean and bitter but as the film progresses, the audience learns that there is a reason for his behavior. Because of this, the character needs to be somewhat dull and insipid so the moment when we realize why, will have a stronger impact. This is a clever device used by writer director Kenneth Lonergan but it was poorly executed. Affleck never popped off the screen and blew the audience away. There was never a moment where the audience forgets Affleck and begin to see Chandler. What I mean by this is often times when we watch a great performance we forget that we are watching an actor and we began to see the character e.g. Denzel Washington in...everything.
Affleck’s performance was incredibly bland and quite frankly boring. There are beautiful moments that could have had a lasting impact on the audience, which could have also been utilized to show some real acting prowess from Affleck, but there was nothing, just the same flavorless acting and dead facial expressions that aged very badly and very quickly. Playing the mysterious and deeply layered character only has so much stamina in a film without some form of catharsis. The audience will get exhausted being toyed with; asking ourselves “Is this the scene where we see what’s inside?”
Near the end of the film, Chandler runs into his ex-wife (Michelle Williams) which brings up their tragic past. One would think that this would be one of the most emotionally impactful scenes in the film but it’s cut short (literally, because of the horrendous editing) after three minutes of Affleck and Williams sobbingly run over each other's lines, making it incredibly difficult to understand what they are talking about. It was like watching a child try to speak after getting a good spanking. Personally, I cringed. It was terribly awkward and I caught some second-hand embarrassment. With there being no movement in character in this scene or throughout the film, it speaks to the lack of character development in the film as a whole. Now I’m no traditionalist, if a filmmaker wants to use character declination, or character growth in lieu of the traditional character change, that’s fine, but Chandler stayed the exact same way from beginning to end. All this shows is consistency which isn’t so much a good thing in a supposed narrative like this.
As the film slugs along, the editing becomes jarring, jumping in and out of scenes without any purpose. There are multiple scenes that have no true goal that end just as abruptly as it starts. Each scene of a film needs to, at the very least, have a clear goal, advance the central plot, build or change the story or the main character but Lonergan seemed to have a different idea which, once again, was a poor decision. The faulty editing slowed the film down and puzzles the audience to the point where we begin to question the importance and value of each dreary scene. This not only sheds a light on the lousy editing but the writing as well since the screenplay is the guideline for every aspect of the film.
But here’s my dilemma. After the Oscars, seeing Affleck take Best Actor and Lonergan win best Original Screenplay, I immediately watched Manchester by the Sea (open mindedly might I add), thinking I was in for a real treat. After the film, I was severely perplexed. I’ve been a writer my whole life, a filmmaker for ten years now, and I like to believe that I know how multiple aspects of film work; writing, directing, cinematography etc. But after watching Manchester, I felt like I was really missing something. How is it that critics who love and study film the same way I do, see something in Manchester that I am unable to see at all?
For two weeks I was stomped. Then it hit me, like a ton of bricks. Could Manchester be a “slice of life” film? Slice of life is defined as a naturalistic representation of real life and often times does not have any real conflict or plot. So I looked it up, “Best slice of life films of all time” and guess who comes in at #6? You betcha. Manchester. But I began to think about it. Critics, cinephiles, people who watch movies, often times we indemnify or compensate for films that we are told to like. Take The Martian (2015) for example. Ridley Scott made some really poor decisions in the film which damaged what was supposed to be an awarding winning drama film. There were too many comedic moments as well as a too optimistic main character which ultimately took away from the real danger and drama. Because of this, The Martian was categorized as a comedy film versus a survival drama that Scott was aiming for, infuriating him.
In my opinion, this is a mistake, a poor decision by the director. But critics, instead of being honest and shining a critical light on his blunders, made a concession for the film and placed the film in a comedy category which it was not intended for. I believe Manchester was handled the same way. Manchester was meant to be a classic, American drama, but because it was told so coarsely, critics ignored the truth and tossed it in a category that would work for it, “slice of life”. I think it’s important to receive films as they are and not pollute them with our own ideas to make them better than they really are. If you’ve got a pig, you can’t put makeup on it and call it beautiful. It’s still a pig. But you can cut it up and have it for breakfast (haha).
Recap
-Boring/ Borderline Bad Acting
-Overly Sad
-Little to No Conflict/ Plot
-No Character Development
-Nothing Really Happens
-Bad Editing
[1/5]
Edited by Jonathan Geneza