AAA review: Manchester by the Sea (2016), Most Mourning Movie by Kenneth Lonergan

This may be the most mourning movie I have seen recently. The director, Kenneth Lonergan, carefully cuts the wounds of everyone with a scalpel, telling you that it won't hurt and then put the truth naked in front of you and let everything go. The film adopts the double-line narrative structure of flashback, and the past reality alternates. The blue melancholy body color sets off the emotions of the film repressed, and the majestic seascape lens and the cruel reality encounter form a strong contrast. The sea and the warm sunshine pluck the hopes of the audience, while destroying the hearts of the people with real life. You may be out of breath, but it doesn't matter because this is life. The film tells a story that may happen in every corner of the world. The only difference is the way and the pain. The same is the sadness we don't want to admit. The hero of the film, Lee, is a maintenance worker. Although life is not rich, he has a beauftiful wife. At a party, Lee's wife interrupted his play with his brother, leaving Lee alone to stay downstairs to get warm. Unexpectedly, the accident happened because of a negligence of Lee. The fireplace matches fell on the ground, and the whole house was burnt down by mistake. In addition to his wife's rescue, all of his children were burned alive in the house.

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From then on, Lee began to become dumb, even suddenly angry. His wife could not forgive his mistakes and the two divorced. Additionally, Lee could not forgive his past, so he moved out of Manchester and came to Boston town to restart. One day, Lee re-engaged his ex-wife who had been remarried in pregnancy on the way to Manchester. His ex-wife's apology made his painful memories come to mind. Lee finally couldn't bear the pain anymore, and eventually chose to leave the city. Yes, this is the ending. There is no dramatic reversal of this story. The protagonist has not completely received spiritual comfort, but continues to live with scars. This is not a movie. It is too much life. Real life will not wait for you to regain your life. The real life is to move forward with pain. Under the cooperation of text and lens, the film shows a change from the shallower to the deeper. The overall tone of the play follows the perspective of the protagonist and undergoes three levels of self-enclosure, numbness and self-reliance. The three keynotes serve as a skeleton to show the audience a mournful picture of lifelessness, so that the viewer's emotions are constantly progressively transformed, and finally completely immersed in the rhythm of the drama's tone, to walk in and feel the shadow.

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Inner self-esteem and fear often make us self-enclosed and hostile to the world. In the eyes of outsiders, Lee is a silent man, but no one knows his experience and inner pain. Everyone in the film tried to wrap themselves up. In fact, this is the normal state of human nature. After Patrick’s mother remarried, in order to welcome her son’s first arrival, the constant nitpicking of Patrick’s performance at the dinner table stems from her own heart. A few Patrick's friends tried to tease movies to alleviate the pain of Patrick's loss of his father, but his girlfriend tried to be active in the atmosphere. The trivialities of life can always lead to a tireless solution to the problem, and perhaps this is the only way to seal up the pain. Lee is busy dealing with his brother's funeral, picking up Patrick's trip to and from different girlfriends, and spending all sorts of bickering with the nephew. Everything is done in order, not because Lee has come out, but on the contrary, he is already unable to get out. Otherwise, how can he be indifferent to the diligence of other women. No one can face it in the face of natural disasters and man-made disasters. All seems to be the normal state. People are gradually using numbness to seal up the pain, such as walking dead.

Lee thought that he could bury the pain from now on, but there is always a moment in life that will make the memories unpredictable, and completely destroy your protective color. When Lee meets his ex-wife on the street, the fortress in his heart finally collapses completely, avoiding eating in a panic. The invitation, the repressed pain into the bar fight, hurriedly found others to take care of the blind. Lee, who thought he could escape the memories, is in the face of Patrick’s questioning, “I can’t beat life”. The pain of many years became honest and released, so the uncle and the two cried. When he frankly faced his pain, Lee changed back to a real person. At the funeral, Lee looked at the tombstone in the distance and wrote the names of several relatives. Lee looked at it for a long time. At that moment, he tried to learn to say goodbye to the past. On the way back to the funeral, I don’t know if it was because of it, but Lee’s face began to stretch gradually, and there was a slight smile. As he passed the store, Lee leaned over and picked up the baseball and scorpion on the side of the courtyard. The moment he bent, and the sun shone on his shoulder. There was a long-lost warmth.

Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/334541-manchester-by-the-sea?language=en-US
Critic: AAA