Manchester By The Sea (2017) - Pain That You Can Never Beat!

★★★★★

Said that time can heal. Well, it’s not necessarily true! There’s wound time can never heal, pain you can never beat, damage you can never fix, past you can never get to live with. There’s always something! If there’s nothing left already, it’s probably not because it’s gone for good. It only means that part of you is dead with it. Thus, neither can you get used to it nor move on to find anything else to fill the hole in your heart. ‘Manchester By The Sea’ is a film about that! It’s not a motivational film to help you recover from whatever’s hurting you. It, on the contrary, makes you feel like you can’t no matter what!

Matt Damon was to direct and star in the film in the very first place but it ended up his good friends Kenneth Lonergan to direct and Ben Affleck’s brother Casey Affleck to take the role of Lee Chandler. Casey is absolutely a better choice for his outlook and way of acting convincingly interpret a character that has been seriously traumatized by his bitter past, and lost his ability and faith to re-connect with people. He’s been intentionally isolating himself and trying not to be hurt or hurt again! Yet he doesn’t seem to have sought redemption or been able to embrace damage done anyhow even after, due to his brother’s death, being obliged to deal with his nephew and in the meanwhile face up to his painful memories in Manchester-by-the-sea! Casey’s performance here really is worth an award or two!

‘Manchester By The Sea’ is a heavy drama to take, but there’s nothing hysterical or acting out! Things seem fine and past but you know they’re not. They’re only buried deep down and are about to surface to hurt at any time as long as there’s a trigger. And when they do in the end, as Lee has to inevitably come across his ex-wife after years of avoidance, the scene would definitely make you burst into tears. The film reminds me of Kintsugi, the art of embracing damage. Lee nonetheless, can only see the cracks, not the beauty of it!

I know how it feels to bear pain like Lee’s that can’t be beat. I’ve been there before. The truth is, there’s always something in life that just can’t be erased no matter how hard you try! But I guess it’s better to feel something than nothing at all, because when you get to admit that it’s something that you can’t let go, you’re probably starting to let it go for real!