Genuinely don't get why people sucked this movie's dick so much

Genuinely don't get why people sucked this movie's dick so much.

First hour is good, but then it shits the bed with weak melodrama and by the end you realize that all the character buildup goes nowhere.

>Patrick
Daddy dies and he clearly has a shit family but he somehow doesn't seem to care. His mother is out of the picture for good (alcoholism/drugs), his grandparents are MIA, his only relative is his deadbeat uncle that he barely tolerates. He's a little asshole that wants things his own way and doesn't realize just how fucked up his life has become now that his sole breadwinner is dead and all his relatives are terrible.

>Lee
Interesting characterization up until the reveal, then pointless over-the-top melodrama.
I think it would've been a better story if it focused on the fact that he's a fucking alcoholic and that caused serious problems in his life. The magic reveal also doesn't explain why the entire town virtually loathes him. This ties into his ex-wife acting out the way she did at the end.

If it wasn't for George (boat guy) and his wife, the entire story would go nowhere.

George is there to help with the funeral
George is there to help with the boat
George and his wife is there to help Lee open up over his problems
George reluctantly decides to adopt Patrick.

At this point why even fucking bother with Lee if everything is solved offscreen by a one-dimensional character?

You invest in these characters' backstories and it just ends up going nowhere. Nothing is solved, people just talk, and a one-dimensional side character takes care of everything.

the film wasn't about who will arrange the funeral, help out with a boat or take care of the kid. you completely missed the point

No the film was about watching a loser do absolutely nothing but drive an ungrateful little shit around while he drinks and falls asleep trying to cook pasta and cause another housefire

B-but ... Affleck was awesome. He won an Oscar, so it must be true.

>Best Shoe-Inspector in a Mumbling Role.

This movie is what I would call: a good, but boring kino. I honestly forgot about it until this thread popped up. It doesn't have that 'staying power'. I'm guessing, its' because, well, like OP says--it's rather lacking in its characterization and fleshing out of details. It's as though the screenwriters don't want you to care about the characters. And the plot was boring. So what am I left with? A message about grief doing terrible things to people, and some become trapped by it? Yeah, there's only hundreds of movies on that topic. As someone who has never endured outside grief, save for my own personal suffering, I just couldn't relate to the movie.

Also, and I'm sure some geneticist faggot will correct me, but how can a ginger kid, has a brown hair uncle? Seemed like a terrible casting choice. I hate redheads in general.

You learn that grief is not something everyone can just move on from and be happy especially if you burn all 3 of your kids alive on accident

And I wouldn't say that the character didn't accomplish anything in the end, it just isn't a big hollywood like instant change in the character.
The ending shows one shred of hope for Lee with him getting an extra room in his apartment for Patrick and wanting to see him again. The ending shot on the boat is similar to the opening shot on the boat.
He will never recover and forgive himself for what he has done, but there is progress in his character because of Patrick.

Also that baseball exchange at the end summarizes their whole relationship in just one scene, where Lee says "just let it go" but Patrick doesn't let go of the ball and keeps throwing it back at him until he keeps it.

>The magic reveal also doesn't explain why the entire town virtually loathes him.
burning your kids alive while drunk and on drugs will certainly make a lot of people angry at you, no matter that it was just a simple accident that coudl've happened either way.

liked it

Did anyone else find the movie's editing to be really haphazard?

Considering, it's a slow-burn with nothing happening until the 'reveal' and confrontation with the ex-wife, no, not really.

Okay, this has to be bait, right?

>You invest in these characters' backstories and it just ends up going nowhere. Nothing is solved, people just talk, and a one-dimensional side character takes care of everything

Like, nobody can actually miss the point this hard. It's totally okay to dislike the movie, but damn, at least try.

yeah, the editing and music are really subpar, which contrasts with the great acting and direction.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. The actual editing of the film overall was good, but the way specific scenes bled into each other was really odd sometimes. It was my only major problem with the movie.

What's the overall point of the movie? Did I miss something, besides depression sucks and grief is unending and is it's own personal hell/purgatory?

>ywn have lunch with randy

Yeah it was a bit clunky and jarring at times, some changes between the close ups and wides certainly brought me out of it a bit but it was nothing major.
Lonergan hired a new editor for Manchester and they basically edited the film to the last moment possible constantly changing everything, so I guess the collaboration didn't work so well.

>The magic reveal also doesn't explain why the entire town virtually loathes him

seriously? he was coked up and drunk and he didn't put a screen on the fire and then coincidentally left for a 20 minute wak to go buy more alcohol. i'm sure many of his neighbors think he intentionally set the fire.

There's no closure at all, which was exactly my problem with it. Even though it possesses some of the most dramatic moments I've ever seen, the ending still feels retarded.

Girl from Moonrise Kingdom grew sum big ol tiddy

see

>...

Did they loathe him. Most of the time, wasn't it "is that him? Oh that's him. are the rumors true?"

>muh melodrama

You really need to learn more about film and expect less entertainment dude. Lay off Boondock Saints and watch actual cinema.

Yeah I got that out of my first watch, I just thought it was a cop out. OP's point about George as an off-screen deus ex machina is true as shit. Lee's growth is hardly there, and regardless if that's the point I still feel compelled to hold it against the film. Because of the scene at the police station I'll never talk trash about it, but this film plays like
>"look at how fucked up this one person's life is, isn't it terrible?"
Just with a bit more grace.

Shouldn't all quality films possess some degree of character development? Lee's net growth was pathetic.

>Lee's growth is hardly there
It is enormous, actually. He starts off as a guy who ges himself beat up and even refuses to buy furniture for the shithole he lives in just to punish himself and make his life worse. At the end of the movie he has a person in his life that he cares about which gives him responsibility and stops him from going completely off the deep end. Of course he's not happily smiling and his life is still shit but it's not Hollywood.

I absolutely loved the use of flashback in the movie, no text or date in the corner, no apparent change of the visuals (except the production and costume design ofcourse), no cheesy dreamlike transition etc.
Just smartly placed flashbacks in the narrative that actually work as sudden flashbacks, it's literally Lee's mind racing constantly from the current narrative to the past.
It was a risky move but Lonergan has faith that the viewer is not a sub intelligent ape that needs 12 clues to figure something out.

The point of the film is that he can't grow much at all because of the severity of his grief and pain. He does develop by getting a spare room for his appartment. Your expectation that a character will change is actually the thing being examined in the film.

It was the most genuinely funny movie I've seen in recent years.
Brilliantly executed situational humor which doesn't break the tone of the film at all.

And Casey really deserves that golden piss statue, absolutely zero "I'M ACTING" in his performance.

The problem with that is that you're basically being trogged through 2 hours of absolutely nothing happening with all the problems being solved offscreen by characters barely getting a passing mention.

And it's not just Lee, Patrick's character is just as guilty of it and he has no excuse. We spend a total of 30 minutes watching him bang two chicks while Lee's autism cockblocks him. Patrick barely gives a shit that his dad died. What's his dramatic setback? the fact that daddy is frozen and he finds that a bit creepy?

well to be fair with his dad's condition i'm sure he'd been steeling himself for his eventual death for years. teenagers are pretty resilient too. they'll bounce back from nearly anything. i think the movie would have been even more overwhelmingly depressing if we had to deal with 2 characters being unable to cope and move on the entire movie as well.

Recovery is a slow road.

Unless you've been affected by personal tragedy/grief, then what will you 'get' out of a film like 'Manchester'? It's a movie that serves no other purpose, other than to remind you, that the human condition sucks--and can always suck more.

I liked the movie. There isn't much to think about it.Nothing much happens anyways.

The conflict of the movie isn't what is Lee going to do about his nephew. The conflict is whether or not he's going to get over his past trauma. Rather, it's his internal conflict, but that always trumps the external conflict in a film. The external conflict is always a means for the character to overcome their internal conflict. Yes, in a way the external conflict does sort itself out, but the payoff you're looking for is in the resolution of his internal conflict.

And Patrick literally cares. It's this tough East Coast culture. It's part of the atmosphere/setting. It's why we get scenes like the director putting himself in for seemingly no reason to argue with Lee about parenting. It's to highlight how the setting and the people. Not only that, but he knew his dad was going to die within a decade for a while. So on one hand, he's very prepared, but then it hits him with the frozen chicken. It is a big revelation and Patrick's character climax.