Manchester by the Sea (2016)

Director: Kenneth Lonergan

Starring: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler

A depressed uncle is asked to take care of his teenage nephew after the boy’s father dies.

How many times now have I watched a multi award winning, highly acclaimed movie that bored me to death? ‘Manchester by the Sea’ is such a movie and the very reason why I generally avoid watching dramas.

‘Manchester by the Sea’ is beyond boring. The film is about…erm, well, it’s about a teenager who goes to live with his uncle after his dad died. If the non-linear storytelling doesn’t confuse you, the very fact that this movie received almost 400 award nominations certainly will. Casey Affleck won the Oscar for best actor, but there was nothing special about his performance. Instead, it was utterly bland.

When Lee’s (Affleck) brother dies, he is surprised to learn he is to be the guardian to Joe’s son, Patrick, whose only interest seem to be having sex with girls when he is supposed to be doing homework. Lee’s back story is told in such a way that I didn’t really care about him. There were moments when I felt like hitting the forward button just to get the movie to go somewhere, but sadly it never did.

Even the background music was too sentimental and quite honestly, overbearing. This film was just talk, talk, talk, talk, and more talk, talk, talk, talk….and slow as hell. There literally was NOTHING happening here. I mean, what the hell??? Am I missing something here? This was a depressing movie filled with unnecessary foul language – and dreadfully slow. I hated it. To all those critics who love this movie so much, please try to smile sometimes! Geez, this was completely and utterly boring. I’m – thankfully – going to forget this very soon. There’s nothing here to remember anyway…

This yawner of a movie received 392 award nominations, winning 129 including 2 Oscars. It is beyond comprehension. Why??? Help me understand how this was not boring and supposed to be entertaining??

‘Manchester by the Sea’ earned nearly $79 million on a $9 million budget.

Would I watch it again? Absolutely not!