2016 Top Ten List #5 Manchester by the Sea

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA        A-                   

USA  (137 mi)  2016  d:  Kenneth Lonergan

For the most part, the story concerns a morose, self-absorbed loner that spends so much time drinking, brooding, and being down in the proverbial dumps that he just seems like the kind of guy that prefers to wallow in his own misery.  Not your typical protagonist, but a guy on the edge who if he isn’t careful, may end up all alone late in life talking to the walls where he might resemble Al Pacino in David Gordon Green’s miserablist indie film Manglehorn (2014), a guy that’s simply too screwed up for his own good.  Not the blockbuster powerhouse of his previous film, 2011 Top Ten Films of the Year #2 Margaret, which is so ridiculously awesome in so many respects, a bold and brutally honest exposé of a post 9/11 New York, or his masterpiece in miniature, You Can Count On Me (2000), a portrait of an orphaned brother and sister, following their lives as the years progress, an understated poetic gem, where Lonergan’s particular skill is finding the inner truth of his characters.  Both feature extraordinarily well-written dialogue and some of the best acting performances on record.  This one examines another uncomfortable reality that plays out in a different fashion if only because of its predictable yet steadfast refusal not to lose sight of what’s eating at the central character, the extent of his personal loss, the source of his unending despair, as his heart has been ripped from his chest and he’s doomed to spend the rest of his life without it, isolated and completely shut down emotionally, where a Greek chorus of whispers heard throughout considers him damaged goods.  If it feels like a ghost story, it is, as the man is a walking ghost.  But it doesn’t start out that way.  It opens with two brothers out on a fishing boat, with older brother Joe Chandler (Kyle Chandler) at the helm while his kid brother Lee (Casey Affleck) is horsing around with Joe’s young son Patrick (Ben O’Brien), telling him exaggerated shark stories that are meant to scare him out of his wits, but the kid isn’t buying it.  It turns out to be the happiest moment in the film, and it’s all a memory, backed by a melancholy choral score and lovely recurring orchestral touches from Handel’s Messiah, Handel: Messiah / Part 1 - 13. Pifa (Pastoral Symphony) - YouTube (3:04), adding an underlying layer of stark beauty mixed with profound sadness.

The film, often given a literary feel as it’s filled with introspection, introduces us to Lee, seen shoveling snow for an apartment complex, living in Quincy, a neighborhood near Boston living the life of a hermit, performing janitorial duties, where he spends his life getting drunk in bars and getting into brawls, with an opening montage showing him performing the dirty work, fixing toilets, light fixtures, leaky faucets and showers, performing these hands-on duties in the intimacies of other people’s apartments where he hears a constant stream of complaints as they see his presence as an unnecessary intrusion in their all-too busy lives.  It’s while clearing the sidewalks that he receives a phone call from George (C.J. Wilson), a family friend, notifying him that his brother suffered cardiac arrest and is heading for surgery.  By the time he gets there, he’s already dead.  The scene at the hospital is respectful but awkwardly reserved, where George is the grown-up in the room while Lee remains overwhelmed by it all, breaking down momentarily when he views the body, a scene filled with emotion and one of the surprises of the film, as he keeps his feelings so tightly wound and close to the vest.  Lee holds in the past, trying to contain the effects by compressing it while living in the present, where two trajectories are happening simultaneously.  This series of flashbacks allows viewers a broader view of the family history, where Joe was personable and affable, well-liked by others and viewed as the steadying influence, where his absence is immediately noticeable, while Lee is viewed as the black sheep, more temperamental and hard to get along with due to his changeable moods, where we learn that Joe had a history of heart congestion, a source of irritation to his wife Elise (Gretchen Mol), who left him shortly afterwards with a drinking problem and hasn’t been seen since.  All this is going through Lee’s mind as he heads to the town of Manchester-by-the-Sea, a small historic and picturesque community on the state’s northeast edge where Joe lived and kept a boat, as he needs to inform Patrick (Lucas Hedges), now a 16-year old kid in high school, seen having a particular physical moment at practice on the hockey rink when Lee arrives, arousing the curiosity of his teammates who identify Lee as an infamous figure from the past, where the point of view remains with the teammates staring silently across the ice, where something out of the ordinary must have drawn him here.

At the opening of the will in the lawyer’s office, Lee is surprised to learn he has been named guardian for Patrick, something that was never previously discussed with his brother, yet as he’s called upon to be there in a moment of crisis, he falls into a profound silence, opening the floodgates to the past, where flashbacks are woven into the storyline as seamlessly as the present, often indistinguishable, yet they have the effect of peeling away the layers of Lee’s tortured soul.  Set to the fatalistic music of Albinoni’s sorrowful “Adagio,” Adagio in G Minor for Strings and Organ, "Albinoni's Adagio" - YouTube (8:38), a dramatic piece also used in Peter Weir’s GALLIPOLI (1981), we discover he was once happily married to Randi (Michelle Williams), leading a surprisingly normal life until an emotionally devastating event occurs, a random freak accident that he feels responsible for and could never ignore, a catastrophic moment that ruined his marriage and drove him out of his hometown for good.  Now another traumatic event is luring him back.  As they leave the office, Lee is in a state of bewilderment, suggesting they may have to move for Boston, which only inflames Patrick, a popular guy who has a good thing going here, who doesn’t want to be uprooted, when Lonergan appears as a bystander, interjecting his own sardonic message into the mix of family turmoil, criticizing the authoritative behavior of Lee as he shuts up Patrick, yelling out “Great parenting,” which only inflames Lee more, wanting to smack him right there on the street.  With both talking over the other, it’s an example of overlapping dialogue occurring simultaneously, a Lonergan trademark, though it feels loose and improvisatory.  Patrick notices a change in Lee’s demeanor from when he was younger, where he’s turned into an obnoxiously downbeat guy who probably drinks too much, while Patrick is smart and extremely likeable, playing in an amusingly terrible garage band, on the hockey team, and is balancing two girlfriends.  When asked if he’s having sex with them both, he claims with one it is “strictly basement business,” where he’s stuck in the basement avoiding parental interruptions, but “It means I’m working on it.”  Patrick is a terrific kid who’s probably already more mature than Lee, but he’s also a troubled teen mourning the loss of his father, keeping secret the whereabouts of his mother who disappeared years ago, but recently reached out to him over the Internet.  Lonergan has a way of capturing teen chatter, a cryptic way of aggressively using words in short bursts, understanding it’s a time for intense fascination with things, yet you’re stuck in an isolated and socially awkward stage in life, as kids need to be driven everywhere by their parents, a task Lee is not altogether ready to handle.  Patrick’s thriving social activity is a contrast to his brooding solitude. 

Lee is so caught up in a cycle of grief that he’s left feeling as if time is standing still, where nearly every scene takes place in the crisp chill of wintry air, with cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes beautifully capturing the harsh winters of a remote seaside town that seem perpetually overcast, with boats regularly seen going out and coming in, where the use of classical music, especially the pieces from Handel’s Messiah, including a brilliant alto and soprano duet in “He Shall Feed His Flock,” Manchester By The Sea (Original Soundtrack Album) - Spotify, an incredibly sad and melancholy lament filled with an expression of hope that God will unburden our sorrow, that recall familiar sounds associated with Christmas.  In this film, when everything else is stripped away, we are left to enter a sort of sacred interior reverie, a hallowed ground of emptiness that is left unfilled, an inner sanctity of unendurable pain for which there is no outlet.  The depth of the story is a man living with unbearable grief, someone unable to be comforted by anything, standing alone at his brother’s funeral service avoiding eye contact, watching others hugging and kissing while he stands separate and apart, where people try to interact with him, but he doesn’t respond to their attempts, ignoring them, as if waiting for them to go away.  He’s not so much depressed, but grieving, unable to forgive himself for what he is ultimately responsible for, carrying all the tragedies that occurred on his back every waking minute of his life, unable to move on from his loss, remaining emotionally crippled. Perhaps surprising is the degree of humor found in this film, often in awkward moments, where it can be insanely funny the way normally reserved New England men express their love and admiration for one another, usually fueled by alcohol, excessively poor taste, bitter sarcasm, and foul language.  Patrick is really sarcastic, for instance, offering wry jokes leading to an amazing resilience, capable of instantly changing the dire mood, while Lee has an undercutting wit, where humor softens the harsher edges of tragedy.  Without the humor, the film would be an unending dirge, but the film more accurately captures a rhythm of life complete with ordinary missteps, where attention to detail is essential, depicting a New England, working-class family with Irish Catholic roots, who are loyal to a fault, but in the case of Lee, easily provoked to violence.  One of the scenes of the film comes near the end when Lee encounters his ex-wife Randi on the street, the only operatic moment, where she reaches out for him, literally offering her heart, acknowledging her share of the blame in a magnanimous gesture that catches him off-guard, as he’s obviously moved by the emotional sincerity of her efforts, letting himself go just for a moment before stopping himself and shutting down again, regaining his self-control, where he’s not yet ready to commit, or even forgive himself, as he’s still in the midst of figuring out how to survive the years of pent-up emotions, but while there’s not an ounce of healing or redemption to be found anywhere, it’s a huge dramatic undertaking to even recognize that love is still in the air.

2013 Top Ten List #2 Laurence Anyways

LAURENCE ANYWAYS       A           
Canada  France  (168 mi)  2012  d:  Xavier Dolan        Official site [Canada]

Two pale figures
Ache in silence
Timeless
In the quiet ground
Side by side
In age and sadness

I watched
And acted wordlessly
As piece by piece
You performed your story
Moving through an unknown past
Dancing at the funeral party

Memories of childrens dreams
Lie lifeless
Fading
Lifeless
Hand in hand with fear and shadows
Crying at the funeral party

I heard a song
And turned away
As piece by piece
You performed your story
Noiselessly across the floor
Dancing at the funeral party

—The Cure - The funeral party - YouTube (4:15), 1981

Easily one of the movie experiences of the year, yet this film was inexplicably chosen to bypass theaters from the entire Chicagoland region and instead played for less than a week in the barren and isolated realm of South Barrington in a 30 theater Cineplex that sits in the middle of an empty field, where at the time tickets were purchased the box office clerk had never heard of this film, where a friend and I were the only two patrons (perhaps all day, perhaps all week) to watch this incredible movie.  Only 19 and 21 when he made his first two movies, now 23-years of age making his first film that does not star the director, he nonetheless writes an original script, directs, edits, subtitles, produces, and does the costume design for his third film, something of an epic romance, a film navigating ten years in the complex and turbulent relationship between a couple in the throes of love where at age 35 the man becomes an openly female transsexual, a gender shift that tests the boundaries of love and tolerance.  The cinematic reach of this film is simply outstanding, where one would be hard pressed to find a more originally conceived film all year, where the fluidity of the slo-mo and hand-held camera movement by Yves Bélanger is balanced by perfectly composed shots, likely by the director himself, where the look of the film is meticulously shaped.  The acting throughout is superb, especially the passionate and powerful performances of the two leads, Melvil Poupaud (who first worked for Raúl Ruiz at age 9 and a last-minute replacement for Louis Garrel) from Ozon’s HIDEAWAY (2009) and TIME TO LEAVE (2005) as the more subdued Laurence and Suzanne Clément as the fiery Frédérique, more commonly called Fred, where there are blown up moments of anger and melodramatic excess, but also quietly heartfelt moments of restraint that express an intimate sincerity, approaching a kind of honesty rarely seen in films today. 

Not since Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret (2011) has a film delivered so many sensational sequences, where the sheer originality factor is impressive, as every scene is beautifully set up, and Dolan’s exquisite use of music can be jaw-dropping on occasion.  Some may feel cheated that the story only tangentially explores gender identification, never approaching a sex change, that it is far more about the tragic effects of an impossible love saga between two strong-willed, artistically inclined characters.  Both, however, are clearly defined, where at nearly three hours in length the film is a marathon for all concerned, where the emotional peaks and valleys are explored at length, delivering cluster bombs of emotion, giving the film a novelesque scope, thoroughly taking its time, often lingering far longer with characters than other auteurs might dare, a common criticism of Cassavetes as well, giving the film a few jagged edges and a feeling of imperfection, where this is not the shortened product as a result of studio demands, but already feels like the extended director’s cut.  Despite claims of youthful indulgence or exaggerated overstylization that make conventional filmmaking seem like ancient history, it remains one of the best and most convincingly moving films seen all year due to the director’s unflappable persistence in accentuating such a deeply felt, carefully nuanced level of humanism.        

Set in and around Montreal during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, the story spans an entire decade, using a completely naturalistic film style intermixed with surrealist bursts of inspiration, where perhaps no one uses music to the same dazzling effect as Dolan, expressing the state of mind of the characters while also providing an infectious dose of youthful energy.  The film begins in an empty apartment, curtains flapping in the breeze, as a door closes like an ending chapter from a book, as Laurence walks outdoors into the light of day dressed as a woman, drawing looks of curiosity and surprise, perhaps even flirting with danger, set to Fever Ray’s “If I Had A Heart” Exclusive: Watch The Opening Sequence From Xavier Dolan's ...  (2:23), where Dolan startlingly provokes the audience with a montage of close-ups and faces, where the viewing audience itself is reeled into this spectator observation mode, becoming part of a collective Greek chorus that bears witness to the events we are about to see.  All in all, this is an exceptionally delivered opening sequence, before backtracking and telling the story entirely in flashback.  Laurence is a 35-year old award winning novelist and literature professor who asks his students questions like:  “Can one’s writing be great enough to exempt one from the rejection and ostracism that affects people who are different?” while Fred works as an assistant director in the movie industry.

All of Dolan’s films are comments on gay culture, where this one may dig the deepest, showing inconsistencies between the progressive idealization and the reality of everyday life, where the shallowness of looks and appearances somewhat unexpectedly is part of the equation, intruding into areas of desire.  The couple’s happiness is expressed early on through a black light sequence, Laurence Anyways - Club scene [The Cure - Funeral Party] (1:25), where the untapped joy, energy and exuberance can be unnerving and a bit overwhelming, appearing larger than life, until out of nowhere, on Fred’s birthday, Laurence announces he’s been living a lie, that he can’t go on living as a man anymore, knowing in his soul that he was always meant to be woman, comparing it to holding one’s breath underwater for over 30 years, finally allowed to surface for air.  Initially, finding this outrageous, Fred is aghast and thinks nothing could be more cruel, but soon comes around to realizing that whatever it is, irrespective of the abject negativity Laurence has received from both families, especially Fred’s bitchy sister, Monia Chokri, a dour picture throughout of pessimism and gloom, deciding she needs to be there for Laurence, becoming her biggest supporter, helping her through the transition with hair, makeup and clothing.  After a few failed attempts, Laurence arrives in the classroom dressed as a woman, to a pall of silence, broken finally by a question asked about homework, but the state of mind is sumptuously revealed to the music of Headman’s “Moisture (Headman Club Mix)” Laurence Anyways (2012) Best Scene YouTube (2:33).

Despite the cruel difficulties that Laurence must endure, where prejudice contributes to a whopping 41% attempted suicide rate among the transgendered, even worse for non-whites or those living outside metropolitan areas, the film exhibits various stages of shaky confidence, where her life is never trouble free, including getting the crap beat out of her, exactly as portrayed in Fassbinder’s mother of all transgender films, In a Year of 13 Moons (In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden... (1978), it also leads to a mental breakdown of sorts from Fred, who is ill-prepared to handle such a major psychological change, as she feels her life literally coming apart, where the camera follows each of them as they go their separate ways, feeling a bit like the tragic end of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cher... (1964), where another all-consuming love gets lost and slowly fades from view, yet remains very much alive in the minds and imaginations of the viewing audience.  Fred’s re-entry into fashionable high society is expressed in a surreal entrance to an extravagant society ball, where she literally floats into the party, to the music of Visage’s “Fade to Grey” Laurence Anyways - Scène du Bal - YouTube (2:58), where the director can be seen lighting a cigarette at 17 seconds.  Laurence maintains a somewhat masculine look and retreats into the fringe regions of transgender society, including a family of aging drag queens and burlesque singers that feel right out of a Fellini movie, preferring a self-imposed isolation where she can write and heal her own wounds. 

Perhaps the scene of the film is set to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, a composition of manic and furious energy, where after continually being denied entrance back to her parent’s house, for fear of how this radical transformation might effect her father, she finally returns to the front door drenched in a downpour of rain, a truly pathetic sight, where her mother, a picture of chilly, overcontrolled perfection as played by the stately Nathalie Baye, simply can endure no more, picking up the television that her husband is continually planted in front of and slams it to the ground, inviting Laurence into the doorway in full view of her father, deciding straightaway to get a divorce, where her life will forever include the daughter she never had.  For Laurence and Fred, however, attempts to stay together do not end so well, where we are treated to an emotional blitzkrieg of accusations and confessional outpourings, with an incendiary performance by Suzanne Clément (showing at least a dozen different hairstyles) that should elevate her to the cover of fashion magazines and star status, where she ferociously defends the man/woman she loves, Laurence Anyways - Restaurant Scene (English Subtitle) YouTube (2:31), utterly confused herself by what it all means, where Dolan repeatedly drags us through the mud of hopeless despair, rubbing our noses in the derailed aftereffects of a broken romance, until sheer exasperation drives them away.  While they do briefly reunite years later, expressed with a giddy Surrealist happiness in the winter snow, Laurence Anyways - Ile au Noir scene (1:48), it quickly fades again into a distant memory, as the film is about how brutally hard it is to survive loving someone, where Dolan’s brilliance in depicting an aura of love transcends the transgender story of what it means to be your true self, as the film ends on a beautiful grace note back at the beginning, with a door opening at the first sparks of love, when “everything was strange and new.”     

Margaret - Extended Cut

MARGARET – Extended Cut         A 
USA  (178 mi)  2011  d:  Kenneth Lonergan 

First of all, this is not a Director’s Cut, or a definitive cut, but simply an extended cut, including a different way of telling the same story using more footage and a different musical soundtrack, adding more operatic elements, also repeated occasions where the director uses overlapping dialogue that occurs somewhere away from the center of the action, giving the viewer a sense of misdirection, showing how easily one can get distracted or misunderstand, but it also interferes with some of the dialogue.  Also, in the latest Blu-Ray version of the film, the theatrical version is Blu-Ray, but the Extended Cut is not, a troubling aspect of the packaging of the film, where the Fox Searchlight Studio has had adverse interests from the beginning, refusing to get behind a project they didn’t believe was workable from the outset.  One might think after the film received such critical theatrical acclaim, the studio might attempt a different course, but it appears they remain wholeheartedly *against* the film. As a result, the Extended Cut is less polished than the original, assembled from rough work cuts, where both the sound and image leave something to be desired, where conversation, such as the initial lunch with Lisa and Emily with her lawyer friend Dave (Michael Ealy), is often drowned out by street sounds, such as nearby jackhammers or traffic noise.  Nearly a half hour longer, the film is no better for the extra sequences, and in fact suffers from some of the added elements which actually detract from the dramatic intensity of the film, while the core drama remains intact.  The extended scenes do serve actress J. Smith-Cameron well as Joan, Lisa’s (Anna Paquin) mother, who is more fully developed here, but this is at heart Lisa’s story, a novelistic examination of her transformation as she carries the weight upon her shoulders, expressing the evolving aspects of personal trauma, where one often does or says things they may not mean, where the internalized nightmare has a way of playing out in inappropriate ways. It’s almost as if people are not in control of themselves, as there’s another internalized voice speaking and making decisions for them as if they’re not even there, as the real person may be temporarily lost or simply disappear altogether. 

As it turns out, You Can Count On Me (2000) took only 20 days to shoot, while for Margaret (2011), actually shot in 2005, they only had 50 days to shoot when the director felt he needed more like 100.  The choice to change the musical score meant deleting the original soundtrack written by Nico Muhly, which is actually much more effective, as the classical and operatic moods in the Extended Cuts don’t offer the variance of the original, where the film is constantly repeating musical styles and themes the audience is familiar with and has already heard, which is quite different than an original soundtrack that has never been heard before, which often adds a certain freshness, particularly to a story as convoluted as this one.  Despite the extension of Joan’s character, the only real positive in the director’s cut are more shots of New York, which are all sensational, where the city becomes a prominently featured character in the film, often beautifully represented by its energetic street activity, a glorious skyline, the luminous look at night, and such uniquely original architecture.  Lisa does an excellent job standing in for the post 9/11 grief and trauma victims from New York, as she’s incredibly articulate, extremely smart, and even though she’s bewildered somewhat by her own self-absorbed teenage life, a drama queen always needing to be the center of attention, even to the detriment of others, she continues to evolve throughout the film in strange and mysterious ways.  The big, dramatic scenes remain the same, though minor alterations in length may play differently with viewers, where the most major change in context is the use of sound, where Lisa is already so operatic, the audience doesn’t need to be reminded by adding emphasis from the soundtrack.  There are a few additional scenes that stand out, such as a group therapy session in her high school theater group where they’re putting on a play, suggesting Lisa may have an interest in acting after all, something that might surprise her mother (an actress) who tells Ramon (Jean Reno) her daughter has a “contemptuous” view of her profession.  There are plenty of group cries and hugs, where under the surface emotional volatility rises to the surface in tears and heartfelt apologies, where in the original the audience has more than enough clues into Lisa’s interior world.  

Lisa’s bedroom scene with Paul (Kieran Culkin) lingers on just a bit longer, where Lisa’s actually upset about what just happened, as neither one takes any personal responsibility, where she embarrassingly confesses her anger before awkwardly asking him to go. In a similar manner, there’s another extended scene between Joan and Ramon as they sip cocktails on a beautiful terrace overlooking the city’s skyline, where after Joan complains how high critical praise actually changes her audience’s reactions, as afterwards people come into the theater with inflated expectations, she expresses her trepidation about how different she and Ramon are, wondering how they can succeed together if there is so much they don’t understand about each other.  Both are awkward moments in a relationship where it’s hard to express your feelings to someone who feels like a total stranger.  While there is another awkward moment when Lisa confronts her teacher Mr. Aaron (Matt Damon) about having a recent abortion, which in the original feels like it may or may not be true, as perhaps her intent was simply to embarrass the guy in public, here there are extended background scenes at the clinic, but every scene she has with this teacher is still staggeringly inappropriate.  There's an unusual outside shot that pans across the apartment windows of Lisa’s neighbors, where random conversations are taking place inside each window, where a conversation with a friend in Lisa’s room is actually interrupted by those incidental voices.  Similarly, Lisa has a scene in a coffee shop with her high school friend Darren (John Gallagher Jr.), where instead of hearing them, we hear a conversation of two elderly women sitting in the booth next to them. Perhaps the impression Lonergan was attempting to convey was how invisible Lisa felt from the trauma, as if no one was listening or paying attention to her, despite her desperate outward pleas. Nonetheless, this is the same, slightly altered film with some of the most gorgeously crafted scenes as anything in recent American cinema, featuring terrific performances, using headstrong characters, often deeply immature, where the director typically cuts or fades to black at a particularly impactful moment, where rather than let entire scenes play out, the film is replete with these small bursts of energy that consistently express more than enough to hold the viewer in awe, where this is surprisingly original, combustible theater at its best. 

You Can Count On Me

YOU CAN COUNT ON ME          A            

USA  (111 mi)  2000  d:  Kenneth Lonergan

I’m not the kind of guy that everyone says I am.         —Terry Prescott (Mark Ruffalo)

A small, independent gem of a film showing a glimpse of life and family strife in a rural upstate New York community, where trees and rolling hills are prevalent, and the idyllic Main Street is the picture of any one-street small American town, which is the setting of a brother and sister reunion.  Mark Ruffalo and Laura Linney are Terry and Sammy Prescott, young adults now after being orphaned at an early age when their parents died in a senseless car accident.  Sammy has an 8-year old son Rudy (Rory Culkin), whose absent father stays out of the picture, leaving unanswered questions and a certain curiosity from the child.  Sammy is the kind of responsible, overcontrolling perfectionist that never has a hair out of place while Terry has always been a more aimless drifter that never worries about how things are supposed to be, as he’d never do things that way anyway.  Sammy still lives in their parent’s house, has a respectable job at the bank, and feels connected to the small town community through church and her son’s school affairs, while Terry never allows himself to feel tied down, comes and goes whenever he pleases, and worries his sister sick about being the kind of guy that continually screws up his life.  But Terry is not a bad guy, just a continual fuck-up, still filled with the rebellious, teenage angst from the trouble he likely got into as a child, where he just doesn’t fit in anywhere and doesn’t stick around long enough to find out why.  People tend to like Terry for his friendly affability and offbeat sense of humor, while Sammy has a way of always making other people feel small by continually proving that she is better than they are.  While she’s smart and reliable, she can behave inappropriately, as she takes advantage of others by extending the range of acceptable behavior because she’s usually so good at what she does.  In this way, really, she can be smug and morally superior, answerable to no one, feeling above it all, as if her life matters more than anyone else’s, though she’s loath to admit it. 

Feeling much like a road movie, where life is an isolated journey, oftentimes sad and lonely, this is a toned down, understated search for truth, where there aren’t any real answers, just difficult questions making our lives feel smaller and our friends and family more disconnected, where here the fragmented pieces of people’s lives are connected by a truly sublime unaccompanied Bach cello piece, the Prelude to the Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007 Rostropovich plays the Prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 ... YouTube (1:59) that adds a sacred element to our ordinary lives.  Initially written as a one act play, featuring a conversation between a brother and sister in a restaurant, where the intensity of their outbursts draws the staring attention of others, remaining oblivious to the rules of public decorum, as they’re simply lost in the drama that is their lives.  Both characters couldn’t be more different, but are highly appealing and become fully developed through the clarity of the dialog which is filled with a rich description of their inner complexities, not always what they appear, more often revealing a wounded reaction to the troubling world outside that has never given either one of them a break.  It’s a soul searching, heartbreaking drama filled with wrenching truths about honesty and feeling connected to someone.  The truth often hurts, as people’s lives aren’t something you can control, as they easily veer off track in unimaginable ways that aren’t always apparent, becoming evident at the most inopportune times and often in the most embarrassing of ways.  The film is always changing moods and shifting directions, very much in the moody and irrepressible manner of Terry, whose inner fury simply will not be contained, yet is framed in the luxuriant color of reds and greens, immersed in the woods which are always nearby, told with an exactitude of detail and formal precision that feels meticulously accurate.  The relaxed authenticity of character just feels so naturalistic and comfortable most of the time, where there isn’t an ounce of pretension, gently and intelligently told as if this were our own lives unfolding onscreen.    

         

Linney and Ruffalo give arguably the best performances of their careers, largely because they each so confoundingly do the unexpected, which is what likely endures us to the characters, Ruffalo as the lovable loser who continually wanders astray and Linney as the maternal anchor of both her boys, who surprises us by needing to break the chains of confinement.  Lonergan himself plays an unflappable small-town minister who remains grounded and personally connected to the lives in this community through the troubles they experience, where he’s constantly confronted by the dark side of human woe, offering human support and encouragement without always resorting to Biblical scripture as lofty ivory tower sentiment, as he understands the fragility of the human soul and how easily it breaks down.  His job is to help repair the broken parts, which often takes a lifetime.  Caught between the love of her brother and the need to protect her son, Sammy can be a force to reckon with, driving everyone around her batty, but what works in this film is how the lines of communication remain open, damaged and flawed as that may be, it’s also equally impressive how she willfully remains a connected force in people’s lives, exerting herself in a place of need, someone to look after broken parts and wandering souls, offering that needed touch with reality from time to time.  Ruffalo beautifully expresses that kind of character that has no real affinity for anyplace, that’s hard to pin down, that refuses to be defined, that will spend the rest of his life searching for something just outside his reach, never settling for the middle ground.  He’s a scarred and wounded character that is achingly real, the kind of guy who disappears and gets lost for large periods of time only to resurface later a bit older, wearier, but still open and vulnerable, and still the same guy you love and always hope he will be.  This is as refreshing a portrait of humanity as you’re going to find, driven by the strong performances, always touching and humorous, filled with near reverential small moments that eloquently speak to us long after the movie has ended.