I was expecting 135 minutes of tortured dissection of
emotional trauma and to an extent that’s what I got, but I got so much
more.
Casey Affleck delivers not only his best performance since
Gone Baby Gone but also quite possibly his career-best. From the opening scenes,
it’s all too clear that his Lee Chandler is a broken man, carrying
insurmountable and self-destructive guilt over an unknown trauma. Required to
return to his eponymous hometown for the first time in many years due to the
death of his brother, the cause of Lee’s guilt and grief is gradually revealed
in timely flashbacks. The revelation of what happened has a half-life for Lee,
his family, the town and the audience.
Where’s the humour then? In Lee’s bickering but loving relationship
with his nephew, played by an almost equally outstanding Lucas Hedges. There’s
an Odd Couple-esque chemistry to this pair, the reluctant parent and the
reluctant child on the verge of being his own man.
The script and direction by Kenneth Lonergan are outstanding
and will be rewarded with awards noms left right and centre, as will Caffleck.
Given the nature and detail of the narrative, the film could have been
unwatchably grim, but Lonergan finds a lightness of touch that allows the film
to breathe.
Also awards-worthy is Michelle Williams as Lee’s ex-wife,
mostly seen in flashback, but her key scene in the present with Caffleck is
best described by Screen’s Jeremy Kay as “devastating in capital letters”.
Arguably it is both the most upsetting and the most uplifting scene in this
simply outstanding film that may well find its way on to my Desert Island
Flicks list.
Score: 10/10
UK release date: 13 January 2017
No comments:
Post a Comment