“The persistence of grief and the hope of redemption are themes as timeless as dramaturgy itself, but rarely do they summon forth the kind of extraordinary swirl of love, anger, tenderness and brittle humor that is Manchester by the Sea, Kenneth Lonergan’s beautifully textured, richly enveloping drama about how a death in the family forces a small-town New Englander to confront a past tragedy anew.

“That rather diagrammatic description does little justice to Lonergan’s ever-incisive ear for the rhythms of human conversation, as he orchestrates an unruly suite of alternately sympathetic and hectoring voices — all of which stand in furious contrast to Casey Affleck’s bone-deep performance as a man whom loss has all but petrified into silence.

“Giving flesh and blood to the idea that life goes on even when it no longer seems worth living, Manchester may be too sprawling a vision for all arthouse tastes, but Lonergan’s many champions are scarcely the only viewers who will be stirred by this superbly grounded and acted third effort.” –from Justin Chang‘s Variety review, posted at 8 pm Pacific.

It’s definitely been a crazy award season with Spotlight being the presumed Best Picture fave from Telluride until late November or early December, and then The Revenant taking three major Golden Globe awards — Best Picture, Drama, Best Director (Inarritu), Best Actor (DiCaprio) — and then Spotlight bouncing back with the usually predictive Critics Choice award for Best Picture, and now The Big Short blowing everyone’s mind by winning the PGA’s Daryl F. Zanuck award. 

Nobody knows anything, there’s no big favorite, it’s all a big toss-up, salad dressing on the floor.

Hollywood Elsewhere’s theory about why The Big Short won is nothing special, but it’s the first scenario that came to mind. The PGA members didn’t want to hand it to The Revenant because they figured last year’s Birdman win was enough for Inarritu, and they didn’t want to give it to Spotlight because it’s …what, too subtle or not dynamic enough or something? So they figured “fuck it, let’s give it to The Big Short…that’ll shake things up and make us seem more interesting than we are.” 

I honestly don’t think there was anything more to The Big Short winning than that. Two vague negatives translated into a “why not?” positive…that was it. And I’m saying that as a fan of Adam McKay‘s film.  Yes, I found it a little bit wonky and forced-marchy the first time, but the second viewing was the charm.

Some Sundance movies are applauded and whoo-whooed, and others just sink in and melt you down. They get you in such a vulnerable place that your admiration is mixed with a kind of stunned feeling, like you’ve been hit square in the heart. Kenneth Lonergan‘s Manchester-By-The-Sea, which played this afternoon at the Eccles, is one of the latter. It’s not an upper by any stretch, but in no way is it a downer. It’s really one of the saddest films I’ve ever seen, and if you’ve got any buried hurt it’ll kill you. This is 2016’s first slam-dunk Best Picture contender, and it will definitely result, trust me, in Casey Affleck landing his first Best Actor nomination.

Cast & crew of Manchester By The Sea following 3 pm Eccles screening. Director-writer Kenneth Lonergan is on far left.

During post-screening q & a (l to .r.) Casey Affleck, Matt Damon, Kyle Chandler.

In part because Affleck has delivered the finest, most affecting performance of his life, and in part because he’s lucked into one of the best written lonely-sad-guy roles in years, and because the part, that of Lee Chandler, a Boston janitor and handyman struggling with a horrific mistake that has wounded him for life, taps into that slightly downcast melancholy thing that Affleck has always carried around. It’s like when Gregory Peck played Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird — it’s one of those legendary perfect fits.

I know what you’re thinking — “another grief recovery drama?” Trust me, it’s not that. For one thing its not about “recovery” in any usual, ordinary sense. And it’s about much more than that anyway, and the writing is just spot-on — masterful — in each and every scene. And it can be summed up in a stick-to-your-ribs line, spoken by Affleck’s Chandler, that everyone will remember after seeing Manchester sometime next fall: “I can’t beat it.”

Even though I have to change suites today at the Park Regency, which is always a pain in the ass, I’m planning to see four films today. 12 noon, Eccles: Sian Heder‘s Tallulah, a conflicted motherhood drama with Ellen Page and Allison Janney. One-hour writing break starting at 2 pm. 3 pm, Eccles: Kenneth Lonergan‘s Manchester By The Sea, another parenthood drama with Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams and Kyle Chandler. 90-minute travel time from Eccles to Library plus a little tweeting. 6 pm, Library: Antonio Campos‘ Christine, a fact-based period drama about a Sarasota TV reporter who ended her life on-air, w/ Rebecca Hall, Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts. 55-minute writing/tweeting break starting around 8:20 pm. 9:15 pm, Library: Elizabeth Woods‘ White Girl, a Manhattan-based coke-dealing drama with a no-star cast. Ends a little before 11 pm. Back to the pad by 11:30 pm, final filing, over & out.

From a review of Swiss Army Man by Variety‘s Peter Debruge: “The result represents not just independent cinema, but an emerging strand of what might be called ‘indifferent cinema’ — wildly iconoclastic personal visions whose creators don’t seem especially concerned about the ultimate commercial fate of their movies, so long as they ultimately reach those kindred spirits who groove to the same strange worldview.”