Trailers are always a montage of the usual fragments. So putting this out is fine, not a problem. But being a staunch admirer…actually a worshipper of this film, I feel something a little different is in order. There are many, many scenes in Manchester by the Sea that work just right, that tell you just enough but not too much. Make a trailer that’s just about one of these scenes. Just give viewers a small slice of the pie, just one slice, so they’ll know how it really tastes.
Oh, and by the way? All of the pull quotes in this trailer are generic-sounding. They don’t have anything extra going on — no snap, no flight, no spinning of the wheel. Here are four that make you sit up and go “hmmm…interesting”:
(1) “Some movies are applauded and whoo-whooed, and others just sink in and melt you down.”
(2) “[Some movies] 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.”
(3) “It’s really one of the saddest films I’ve ever seen, and if you’ve got any buried hurt it’ll kill you.”
(4) “Casey Affleck taps into that slightly downcast melancholy thing that [he’s] 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.”
These are all from my 1.23.16 Sundance Film festival review.