Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea Screens at Rome Film Fest

At the Festa del Cinema di Roma, Kenneth Lonergan's film Manchester by the Sea was presented, starring Casey Affleck as Lee Chandler, a handyman burdened by a tragic past. Set in Manchester, Connecticut, the film eschews typical melodramatic close-ups for long shots and total frames, visually conveying emotional distance. Lonergan, who wrote Gangs of New York, employs innovative flashbacks without visual distinction from the present, reflecting his screenwriting background. The narrative includes mundane yet disturbing details of American provincial life: hockey games, pub brawls, white wooden row houses, and all-male ping-pong matches. The film's crystalline photography avoids close-ups even in intimate dialogues, suggesting emotional pain. The soundtrack is criticized as overly didactic during intense scenes. Lonergan's style stages what cinema usually omits—a stretcher that doesn't fit in an ambulance, a walk using a dry branch to strike iron gates—without comedy or irony, but as descriptive realism. The film was reviewed by Mariagrazia Pontorno.