melancholia for an american life
by
Douglas Messerli
Kenneth
Lonergan (writer and director) Manchester
by the Sea / 2016
Just
as many journalists and film critics have touted, Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea is a painfully
moving and yet somehow uplifting story of personal guilt and the loss of the
central character’s ability to emotionally feel and express himself—except
perhaps through anger and self-hatred.
Lee Chandler (brilliantly performed,
despite the fact that he has very few verbally communicative moments, by Casey
Affleck) has moved away from the small Manchester-by-the-sea, Massachusetts
community where he has lived most of his life; now working as a
handyman-janitor, he willfully does the dirty jobs the people of his buildings
require: everyday plumbing, unplugging backed-up toilets, fixing up
chandeliers, and clearing the heavy Boston snow away from doors and
sidewalks—all the while working for minimum wage. The handsome young man
appears to be the model of decorum, although one day he does lash out at
overbearing apartment dweller, and later, as two men seemingly stare at him in
a local bar, he reacts suddenly quite violently, slugging them both in the
face. The men, well-groomed and handsomely dressed, are probably gay, and are
looking at him simply in admiration, so his sudden burst of violence might seem
to suggest that Lee is simply a homophobe.
All of these events are gradually revealed
in a series of scenes that toggle between the past and present, somewhat
confusing to the viewer because of their changes in the characters’ ages and
appearances; but that’s obviously part of Lonergan’s intentions, showing in
great detail, how the past cannot truly be separated—at least for Lee—from the
present.
Although he is a highly affable 16-year
old, even Patrick has problems, breaking out occasionally in violent moments
while playing hockey (to be fair, Lee’s sudden appearance at Patrick’s hockey
practice surely signifies to him that his father has died); he is having sex
with two of fellow schoolgirls, and insists his uncle lie about their visits to
each other’s homes; and, when—after the mortuary has reported that the frozen
ground cannot permit his father’s burial until Spring, forcing them to keep the
body in cold storage—Patrick has a sort of psychological break-down by simply opening
the refrigerator freezer, after frozen chickens and other meals spill out unto
the kitchen floor. Like many a teenager, Patrick is also somewhat selfish and
insensitive, demanding they keep a boat that needs a new, unaffordable, engine,
and insisting that he will not return to Boston with his uncle. But then all of
his friends and life are in Manchester, and Lee has nothing much in the way to
offer him in terms of normal readjustment into life.
Randi, encountering her former husband on
the street, attempts to ask his forgiveness for her previous behavior and
suggests a new possibility of friendship. Yet Lee can only run from these
offers of reconciliation, mutely pointing the place where he seems to declare
he no longer has any heart. Another violent episode in a Manchester bar,
results in his emotional breakdown.
Perhaps it’s just the times—after a year
of a messy presidential campaigning and the shocking and potentially terrifying
election results—but several of the films this year have portrayed the same
sense of melancholy, wherein things do not quite end the way they should, and
characters are forced to make-do with the few consolations they can find.
Strangely, both Woody Allen’s golden-framed Café
Society and Damien Chazelle’s superficially playful and joyful La La Land both end similarly, as does
Barry Jenkins Moonlight, along with
Giogos Lanthinos’ The Lobster and
even Marcin Wrona’s Demon (the latter
two foreign films released this year in the US); Jackie’s subject is nearly all about a funeral. All speak of wrong
choices made and the difficulties or even impossibilities of healing. If
nothing else, it’s clear that the cheerful myths of American directors such as
Frank Capra and Preston Sturges no longer resonate with our society, and that
for many of us The American Dream has long-ago died.
What we don’t know about him yet is that
he has often been stared at and pointed out many a time back in Manchester
after a tragic fire has destroyed his house, killing his three children. More
pointedly, he has been partly responsible for their deaths, starting up the
fireplace after a long evening of drinking and smoking cocaine with male
friends, leaving the home to pick up a final pack of beer. In his dazed state,
he has forgotten to return the fireplace screen. Reporting this to the police, he
expects to be taken into custody, but is simply let go; as he turns to leave he
grabs a policeman’s gun, attempting to commit suicide.
Eventually, after he is called back to
Manchester upon the death of his brother, the story basically moves forward,
revealing that his brother has made him the guardian of his teenage son,
Patrick (Lucas Hedges), an almost impossible request given Lee’s mental
condition and the impossibility of his remaining in a town where he is often
shunned. What we discover, of course, is that those who shun him or even
vocally castigate him for the past events, are, like him, basically good people
with open flaws.
Patrick’s mother (Gretchen Mol), now about
to be married to an evangelical Christian (played convincingly in a short role
by Matthew Broderick), has been a drug-addict and alcoholic, who has eventually
simply disappeared from her family. Only Patrick appears to know of her current
whereabouts.
Lee’s former wife, Randi, who has
remarried and is about to have a baby, publically abused Lee and divorced him
after the fire, certainly contributing to the general hostility of many
community members. Even the wife of one of Lee’s and his brother’s closest
friends, George, tells her working associate that she doesn’t want to see Lee
working near the shipyards.
Lee, nonetheless, slowly begins to care
for his young charge, and one mother of Patrick’s girlfriends even takes a
liking to Lee, insisting he come over for dinner. His painful
incommunicativeness, however, creates comic results.
The only solution, it is apparent, is
for him to return to Boston, where at least can find a job and escape the
everyday blaming by some who seem unable to forget.
Sadly, he gives up his guardianship, as
the Chandler’s family friends, George and his wife, agree to adopt Patrick, and
take him into their home.
Yet, even now this broken man holds out
a promise of hope, telling Patrick that this time he has rented two rooms, so
that the boy might occasionally visit or live with him if he finds a
Boston-area college to attend. Patrick’s answer, “I’m not going to college,”
cuts through the heart like a knife.
For all of its dramatic power and moving
expressions of human frailty, in the end Longeran’s film is just too busy with
realist details at times to fully project any potential answers to the despair
these characters often face. One might not describe this film as a tragedy but
rather as a melancholic fable that reveres its own sensibility a bit too much.
Los Angeles,
December 27, 2016
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