Beneath Manchester By The Sea's surface

Horror movies aren’t the only ones with ghosts. Sometimes instead of special effects or visual thrills we’re haunted by subtext. The art of conveying the unspoken, subtext is a hallmark of great writing in its reflection of the subconscious. By differentiating what a character is feeling from what he is thinking — from what he is saying — from what he is doing — a writer/director like Kenneth Lonergan can touch upon emotions more tragic and frightening than any horror movie could hope for.

In Manchester By The Sea, Lonergan is forced to rely on subtext because the tragedy endured by the film’s main character Lee Chandler is unspeakable. (Heck, Lonergan won't even detail it in the DVD commentary.) Instead, as Lee returns to his hometown in the wake of his brother’s death to situate his nephew, all we get are subtle hints sprinkled in dialogue: “…The Lee Chandler?…the very one… you know that story’s bullshit…Lee, nobody can appreciate what you’ve been through.” Finally, an hour in, in the coup de gras of flashbacks, we learn that Lee has lost his three young children, all burned to death in a house fire he accidentally started.

…yeah. The result is a portrait of a now-minimally-functioning man who robotically deflects romantic salvos, needlessly provokes barroom brawls that echo his failed suicide attempt and limits his human interaction to practicalities, too crippled to even contemplate moving forward. When his ex-wife musters the strength to forgive him during a chance run-in in one of the most emotional scenes put on film ever, all Lee can say in return is “There’s nothing there.” And when he informs his nephew he has to move away, his reason is simply “I can’t beat it.” These glancing blows reflect the wisdom behind Lonergan's approach: Lee's pain runs far too deep to articulate. An actual glimpse into his head is much more visceral: in a scene that reportedly caused the filmmaker himself to break down, Lee awakens from a nap on the living room couch to the sight of his two dead daughters. "Daddy, can't you see we're burning?" they ask. It's a cleanly-landed haymaker.

What’s most frightening about this movie is its empathy. While a lesser film would have provided a reason to condemn Lee for the fire — substance abuse, say — Lonergan, by withholding judgment, allows us to see ourselves in Lee — a likable if rambunctious everyman who, in the words of the town fire marshall, simply “made a horrible mistake, like a million other people did last night.” As I contemplated not only Lee’s grief but the shame the character would feel at having innocently but carelessly abdicated such a primal responsibility, I wondered if I could muscle on under such circumstances or if Lee's suicide attempt was justifiable. My own experience with meditation leads me to envision a hypothetical path forward at a retreat, not unlike the friendless life (“monastic,” as Lonergan puts it) Lee has forged for himself. Living as a janitor in a one room apartment, the only hint of his past takes the form of three picture frames on his dresser. We’re never shown the actual photos; we don’t need to see to believe in ghosts.