Robert Frost wrote, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” We usually think of rosier pictures of home, yet we all know that many homes are unhappy places. Frost points out that, even if home is the last place you want to be, sometimes you have to go home, and if it’s really your home, the people there will receive you.
Frost’s line makes a good tagline for the new film Manchester By the Sea. Casey Affleck plays Lee Chandler, a taciturn handyman in Boston. He gets called back to his hometown of Manchester-By-the-Sea by the death of his older brother, Joe. Joe had a chronic heart condition that left him vulnerable to such a sudden death, and he has left behind a 16-year-old son, Patrick, and a will specifying Lee as the guardian. But he never talked to Lee about that plan. The film follows Lee and Patrick as they grieve their loss and figure out their future.
Along the way, we find out that Lee has more to grieve than just his brother’s passing. Director Kenneth Lonergan skillfully weaves in flashbacks to fill in the back story; Lee has some kind of notoriety around town, but we don’t know why. We see him as a fun-loving, hard-partying man with many friends, a far cry from the soulless shell he has become. We also see him with three children and a wife, played by Michelle Williams, with whom he doesn’t seem to find any joy. Eventually, it all comes together… but I won’t spoil it for you.
For the most part, Lonergan’s story is an excellent character study, with only one major misstep, for me – I can’t believe that Joe wouldn’t have told Lee about the plan. But it sets up a moving drama. Lee has everything provided for him if he moves back to Manchester-By-the-Sea and becomes Patrick’s guardian, but that place and responsibility is everything he’s been running from.
Manchester By the Sea presents Lee as a different kind of prodigal son. He had his years of dissolute living not in a far country, but in his hometown. And when that life ended, he left. Now he’s had to return, but he has neither his father nor his older brother to receive him. In place of a welcome party, Lonergan sets is a funeral. Lee has to go there, and they have to take him in, but does he have to take them? Does he have to stay home? I won’t ruin the ending for you, but I’ll say that resolution only comes when someone plays the father’s role from the parable: embracing and taking Lee in, not out of duty, but out of joy.
You might also find these reviews of Manchester by the Sea helpful: