SUNDANCE 2016: Capone reviews Kenneth Lonergan's MANCHESTER BY THE SEA and Paul Rudd in THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CARING!!!

Hey everyone. Capone just back from Park City, Utah, after once again attending the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Here are two of my absolute favorites from Sundance, including one that I feel certain will long on my Best of 2016 list, somewhere right near the top. Look for them both in theaters later this year…

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA



As someone who greatly admired what writer-director Kenneth Lonergan achieved with YOU CAN COUNT ON ME and only liked about 50 percent of his admittedly tamper-with, long-delayed MARGARET, I wan’t quite sure what to expect from his newest excursion, an exploration into the many ways we deal (or don’t deal) with loss and grief and digging back out of such experiences so that we can carry on with our lives. What we often forget is that the way grief is portrayed in movies, usually the story being told is about how a character makes the journey—or even just the first step on said journey—to find a better place, and by the end of the film, the character has hope or some kind of redemption or forgiveness, whatever that person needs to exit the pit of despair. But in the real world, things don’t work out nearly as well for us mere mortals, and MANCHESTER BY THE SEA is a tough, thoughtful and perfect reminder of that.

There is something so perfect in the structure of this movie—which includes a series of beautifully placed and executed flashbacks—that almost begs us not to reveal too much about the plot details, so I’ll attempt not to. When we meet Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck, making good on the promises he made as an actor in GONE BABY GONE and THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD), he’s a quiet, competent janitor/handyman for a Boston apartment complex, when he receives a call that forces him to head back to the old suburban neighborhood of Manchester by the Sea, where some of his family still resides. His older brother, Joe (Kyle Chandler, in his best film role to date), who has been suffering from a heart condition for many years, has finally succumbed, leaving his teen son Patrick (Lucas Hudges of MOONRISE KINGDOM) in the care of Lee, who wants no part of taking care of a kid, even his beloved nephew.

What follows is a magnificent unveiling and laying bare of Lee’s deepest thoughts and fears about being back in this town and being placed in the position where he is someone’s legal guardian (Patrick’s mother, Elise, played by Gretchen Mol, has been out of the picture for many years due to substance abuse and general bad behavior). Lonergan backs things up a few years, giving us glimpses into often better times: Lee and Joe taking a much younger Patrick (Lucas Hedges) out on the family boat; Lee’s first indication that he had heart trouble; Lee and then-wife Randi (Michelle Williams) happy at home with their young children. The more we’re shown, the more we wonder what blew up Lee’s life and damaged him so completely that he has yet to recover or show any sign of wanting to.

This is not Affleck’s first time pulling out the Boston accent, but unlike many recent films that seem to celebrate the sexist, racist and reckless machismo and non-stop drinking of working-class townies, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA acts as a condemnation of the lifestyle when it shows the consequences of such behavior in its most brutal form. Adding to the overall sorrowful tone of the film is director of photography Jody Lee Lipes’s steely blue and grey camerawork, matching the moods of many of the characters.

Not that the film is without humor. One of the most honest elements about MANCHESTER is the way it admits that not everyone grieves the same. In the days leading up to his father’s death, nephew Patrick was close to sealing the deal with his girlfriend, and his raging hormones didn’t subside just because he had to attend a funeral. One of the first requests he makes of his Uncle Lee is if the girl can sleep over in his room, claiming his dad never had a problem with it. The kid is a perpetual horn-dog and delivers some much needed comic relief both in his attempts to bed the girlfriend and in attempting to communicate with his emotionally shutdown uncle. He even attempts to set Lee up on a date of sorts with the girl’s mother (Heather Burns), hoping they’ll keep each other occupied in the living room while the clothes come off upstairs.

Some of the toughest moments in the film involve Randi getting in touch with Lee to make sure it’s okay that she and her new husband come to the funeral. While Lee manages to hold it together most of the time, an encounter near the end of the film is almost too difficult to watch. In a thousand other movies, that scene would have played out so that these ex-spouses make some sort of peace, but Lonergan has other ideas, and watching Affleck get so flustered and uncomfortable in the moment that he can’t even get words out is perhaps the finest piece of acting he has ever done.

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA manages not only to capture a place and its people, but it also makes it clear that the two are undeniably linked. Some people break free and start anew, and others live and die right where they started, while others suffer no matter where they go. The film’s only downside is that it reminds us how damn long it takes Lonergan to write and direct a movie. But if the results are this extraordinary, we’ll somehow find a way to fill the gaps. By making these small time jumps, Lonergan reminds us how linked the past and present will always be, and he offers up a portrait of a man who wants the best for his nephew, which he’s convinced is being as far away from him as possible. That’s a hard realization for him and for the audience. For those who think, These are not the messages we want our beloved movies to give us about life, Lonergan’s response might be, “But that’s the way life is.” Welcome to the first masterpiece of 2016.


THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CARING



A perfect blend of feel-good crowd-pleaser and deeply dark humor, THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CARING comes from writer-director Rob Burnett (the long-time “Late Night with David Letterman” producer, as well as an executive producer on the series “Ed” and “Bonnie”), who adapted Jonathan Eivson’s novel "The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving." Clearly on the rebound from some awful experience in his life, Ben (Paul Rudd) decides it’s time for a change in his life, and he takes the six-week course on how to be a home healthcare provider. He’s simultaneously dodging his estranged wife, who is attempting to get him to sign their divorce papers, which he is not prepared to do.

Ben’s first assignment is to care for a wheelchair-bound young man named Trevor (Craig Roberts, from SUBMARINE and NEIGHBORS), whose dutiful mother Elsa (Jennifer Ehle) is convinced Ben will be driven off by Trevor’s exceedingly abrasive personalty and tendency to pretend to be dying. As instructed, Ben follows Trevor’s carefully scheduled regimen on meals, pills, television and rest, but nowhere in the routine is there anytime outside the home, something Ben thinks is a shame, and after the the two start to become something resembling friends, Ben suggests a road trip to visit a few of the roadside attractions that Trevor seems to enjoy reading about online (he also enjoys a great deal of porn, FYI).

Not surprisingly, Elsa is against the idea, but she eventually relents, partly because she knows that getting out of the house and breaking routines can be nothing but good for her son. The men pile into the wheelchair-accessible van, and away they go on a tour of mostly the American Southwest. The actual plot of the film isn’t really what makes FUNDAMENTALS shine; it’s the banter between Rudd and Roberts. Many at the screening I attended said the film works because it’s “Rudd being Rudd,” which is mostly true. But Roberts gives as good as he gets. Still, when Ben is attempting to get Trevor to eat a Slim Jim for the first time, I couldn’t stop laughing at Rudd’s taunts when Roberts initially refuses. Some of what Ben says is insensitive—there’s no question about it—and every bit of it is hysterical.

By making this a road-trip story, Burnett gives our heroes time to bond and dig deep into their respective issues (granted, the idea that both men are crippled—one on the inside, one on the outside—might be a bit too on the nose), but it also forces them to interact with new faces, something they both desperately need. On their journey, they pick up a hitchhiker named Dot, played by Selena Gomez, who seems right at home in this four-letter environment. She’s running away from her overly restrictive father, but it helps that Trevor has a big crush on her and is completely without the skills to charm her. Naturally, he seeks advice from Ben, who is dealing with some fairly painful thoughts of his own.

The one big misstep in THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CARING is the final-hour addition of another passenger, Peaches (Megan Ferguson), a ready-to-pop pregnant woman who offers little to mix beside the inevitable birthing scene. I’m at a loss why this character was necessary or what she adds to the nicely balanced trio. But I guess if you have your heart set on a water-breaking scene, you need a pregnant lady. Gomez is so strong in this part that she makes Ferguson seem unnecessary to the mix.

The film’s wrap up is a little too tidy, but Burnett supplies us with such a good time and so many laughs getting there, it’s easily forgivable. Rudd’s gift for improvisation serves him especially well in this setting. While normally, his talents are used to elicit laughs (which is certainly the case in many spots here), he also taps into the heart and sadness that moves just under his character’s skin, not visible but always present. At some point this year, the film will be available on Netflix, but a theatrical release is expected as well, likely with a different distributor. THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CARING is textbook You’ll Laugh-You’ll Cry stuff, and it works quite nicely.

-- Steve Prokopy
"Capone"
capone@aintitcool.com
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