As an extremely private person, I can confirm this is one of the more realistic, true to emotion films I’ve seen lately.
Grief is a part of life. But there’s no script on how someone grieves anything. We all uniquely experience things and we all uniquely react to things. This film, if nothing else, shows a real honest and raw application of that. And to be quite honest it’s a breath of fresh air.
Casey Affleck does nothing flashy here and that’s exactly the point. He just exists. And that’s ok. He doesn’t “have” to do anything. Us, the audience would like him too. But that’s not how people are in real life. People live with an level expectations pushed on others. A lot of how we view the world is based on these expectations.
What I loved most about Manchester By The Sea is its simple, yet strict delivery of making you care for someone who doesn’t follow any usual forms of a hero. He’s just a normal man who had major tragedies happen. He’s not doing anything to win you over.
If nothing else, ‘MBTS’ will grind you down until your comfortable with the uncomfortable notion that hero’s don’t wear capes or have an ‘S’ on their chest. They are sometimes unlikable people who do awful things, yet push through everyday and win the daily battle of struggle vs. survival.
This is one the best films I’ve seen in a very long time.
True, raw and honest.
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ddileo 