This movie shows us the present Lee and the past Lee. Lee lost his children and he's been left in a dark alone. Joe had helped him get well and Lee has been getting over the distress. And one day,Joe died and his will says that Lee is going to be Patrick's guardian. Lee refuses it first but he decides to be his guardian after all. And then the new life starts and the movie starts showing us Lee's past. Lee's felt a great responsible to his children's loss and he's not sure if he can take care of Patrick. We can see Lee's distress of the past some times on the movie. On the other hand,Patrick doesn't look so sad at Joe's loss. But we see Patrick get sick when he sees the frozen chicken and I think that expresses that Patrick's had the sad feelings and he's been patient. Those things happen between Lee and Patrick and they develop together. But at the last, Lee decides not to take care of Patrick as his parent. The complicated situation is built between them but their relationship is never broken. At the last scene,they ride on the boat and go fishing as they did when Patrick was little. This movie is about the development of each people,Lee,Patrick,Lee's ex-wife Randi and so on. This movie is about their lives' journeys.

Manchester by the sea is a beautiful movie. This movie reflects a person, trying to adjust his life filled with misery and pain, suddenly gets an unwanted responsibility to deal with. and in that process of journey, we learn background glimpses of broken relationship, living burden of pain, abandonment of responsibilities, hope resembling re-establishment of relations, moving and living on with truth and reality.Casey was brilliant from the word get go. He let us feel the character deeply. Sublime performance from Lucas, as well, as patrick... It is a pure class hardcore slow drama that for sure would cover a particular class of viewers.

Watch something else or go outside for a walk. This film is not worth your time.

Depressed? I have seen many depressing movies. I have seen many bad movies, but this is both. I stuck with it because of the accolades assuming it would spark into life at some point. Sadly not. If the pregnant pauses were taken out of this film it would have lasted less than an hour. A lot of the scenes started with an inexplicable pause let alone the ones added during the dialog. Very difficult to watch. Boring, unnecessary length of time taken with each scene most of which had little to do with the story, just repeating the turmoil of each character and, boy, they had so much turmoil. If being depressed wins you an Academy Award this wins hands down. I don't think that acting depressed is too difficult. No change in emotion during what felt like three hours is not too hard to play but by God it's hard to watch.