Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is a knight in shining Carhartt—an earnest, if recalcitrant janitor fawned over by female clients. He live in Quincy, a modest Boston suburb, where he spends the majority of his evenings at a local bar. Chandler avoids interaction, except occasionally to provoke a fight, though he handles himself apathetically during these altercations, purposefully taking a beating, as if to punish himself for some unnamed transgression. A series of flashbacks recall a happier and more carefree period in Lee’s life when he would go fishing with his older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) and nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges). But there is very little in common with the droll and affable twenty-something Chandler and the stern man he has become. Suddenly, there’s more bad news: Joe has passed—congestive heart failure is the culprit. Lee returns to Manchester, his hometown, to pay his respects and attend to his brother’s affairs. He learns that Joe has entrusted him with custody of Patrick, who is now a sophomore in high school. Lee insists that there must be some mistake, that he isn’t capable of caring for the boy. Lee holds himself responsible for a grave and senseless accident, one whose tragic consequences hang over the film like a toxic haze, endowing each and every action with veiled significance. Kenneth Lonergan’s “Manchester by the Sea” is an investigation of tragedy and its morbid aftershocks, a film that depicts the challenging path from grief toward acceptance and, possibly, recovery.

“Manchester” is Kenneth Lonergan’s third film. His previous effort “Margaret” was released in 2011 after a protracted legal battle with Fox Searchlight, the production company. In 2006, Mr. Lonergan delivered a nearly three hour final-cut to the studio. They asked for something shorter but Lonergan wouldn’t budge. Several lawsuits and five years later, the film was finally released, though Fox Searchlight effectively scuttled the project by stripping it of a marketing budget and relegating the movie to just a handful of screens during a short theatrical run. In spite of this tragic outcome, “Margaret” has acquired a lofty reputation since its release and is regarded by some critics as a masterpiece. The nightmare tale of post-production and the film’s subsequent resurrection calls to mind the experience of John Cassavetes, the actor, writer, and director who struggled to finance and distribute his films for the duration of his career, but whose work posthumously acquired much-deserved acclaim. Beyond the challenges each man endured and overcame, there is a distinct stylistic similarity to their work: that of realism forged from life’s furnace.   

In spite of the praise heaped upon Mr. Lonergan’s “Margaret,” I’ve always regarded it a poor recapitulation of John Cassavetes’ “Opening Night” (1977).  Each film begins with a car crash. In “Opening Night” the chauffeured sedan of an aging actress runs over a young female fan as it leaves a sold-out performance. The actress can’t help but see something of herself in the young woman: she sees the fan’s death as a reflection of her own deminse. The accident takes on a profound symbolic meaning such that the end of her career, youth, and beauty seems imminent and unavoidable.

In “Margaret,” the teenaged protagonist witnesses a pedestrian run down by a speeding bus. She testifies on behalf of the bus driver but later, fraught with guilt, retracts this statement in an attempt to prosecute the driver, who was clearly at fault. The incident becomes centerpiece for a moral tale that contrasts the naïve idealism of the teenaged protagonist with the deceptive and self-interested behavior of the adults around her. “Margaret” depicts cause and effect, albeit with pathos and substance, while “Opening Night” achieves something greater by integrating tragedy within a broader metaphysical and psychological context.

“Manchester by the Sea” resembles another Cassavetes project, his 1974 domestic drama “A Woman Under the Influence.” Both films depict a boozy blue collar milieu, unstable alcoholic mothers, and strained relationships between parents and their children. However, Cassavetes and Lonergan depict relationships between men in fundamentally different ways. Cassavetes writes scenes in which men turn to their friends for companionship when they fail to connect with women in meaningful or substantive ways. In “A Woman Under The Influence,” Nick Longhetti (Peter Falk), the foreman of a construction team, finds solace from a turbulent relationship with his wife Mabel (Gena Rowlands) in the company of his drinking buddies.

Lonergan however, depicts the limitations of masculine companionship. Take, for example, the relationship between Patrick and his hockey coach. Soon after his father’s death, Patrick is involved in a scuffle with another player at practice. Though the coach is aware that Patrick’s father has recently passed, the coach offers him little sympathy. Instead he suspends Patrick from practice. The boy apologizes and asks to be forgiven. “The ice isn’t a distraction,” comes the coach's stern rebuke. The suspension is upheld. Dejected, Patrick is about to leave the office when the coach makes a halfhearted attempt at reconciliation. He says he “knows what Patrick is going through,” and urges his player to come to the office to “talk things out.” But the damage is already done. The invitation isn’t appealing because the coach wasn’t able to make himself accessible at the moment when Patrick most needed help. In Cassavetes’ films, men turn to men for assistance and companionship, in Lonergan’s the opposite is true.

Virtually every detail of consequence in Manchester by the Sea: Lee Chandler’s depression, his reluctance to assume custody of Patrick, and his disinterest in returning to Manchester, can be can be traced to a single grave accident. The accident creates a vacuum in which everything else is sucked away, leaving only the immense and constant pressure of Lee Chandler’s guilt. His situation is tragic in much the same way that a mass-shooting is tragic: it is the senseless sort of tragedy that cannot be explained and which demands absolute empathy. There is no space for critical distance, no diversity of interpretations. In film, literature, or theater a character is generally responsible for his or her problems—whether by hubris, infidelity, or greed—but Lee Chandler has problems thrust upon him. His poor luck and lack of agency whittle the range of possible reactions down to just one: "Manchester" asks us to pity Lee Chandler. He is presented as a Christ-like figure, a secular saint, exalted in his suffering, redeemed by his asceticism. We wallow alongside Chandler for 137 minutes, indulging in his misery. But what’s the point? There is no lesson to be gained from his plodding, pointless plight—Chandler is a martyr without a cause.

Late in the film, Lee explains to Patrick that he’s looking for a larger apartment in Quincy so that Patrick would have a place to stay, were he to come visit. But Patrick rejects Lee’s casual invitation outright. Why? After wading through glum melancholic muck for nearly two and half hours, the film stands at the precipice of something different: a resolution of sorts, its own modest version of a happy ending. But it doesn’t commit. This lack of resolution strikes me as both frustrating and inadequately supported. Cassavetes was often criticized for inconclusive endings, for leaving questions unanswered, but these anti-conclusions actually correspond with his philosophy—the form matches content. A Cassavetes film is like a boxing ring. The characters square up, face off, and somebody may win and somebody may lose, but there is little forward movement. Conversely, “Manchester by the Sea” shows signs of linear trajectory. Lee Chandler—in spite of his oppressive victimhood—shows signs of recovery. His decision to invite Patrick to Quincy marks a dramatic transition away from prior reticence. So why should Patrick refuse, when doing so is not only unexpected but impolite?

Against his better instincts, Lonergan seems to be pushing against a “happy ending” because that would be obvious or trite. But his anti-resolution is disappointing in its own way because it isn't very convincing. Lonergan looks like a man trying to make an argument that he doesn’t agree with. In contrast to Cassavetes, who offers a dark vision of the world—one in which characters are prone to self-destruction, abuse, and betrayal—and for whom the absence of a resolution seems natural, Lonergan’s optimism and humanism shine through. Lonergan’s characters are typically earnest and benevolent people thrust into challenging circumstances who try to do the right thing. Whether or not they succeed is an altogether different story, the crucial thing is that they try.