Film - Manchester by the Sea

The third film about death seen so far this year (A Monster Calls, Jackie). Manchester by the Sea is more enchanting than that sounds, a bit like the title.The real story, set in a small town in Massachusetts, is about Uncle Lee and his relationship with his nephew. 16 year old Patrick has just lost his father to an illness and his mother long ago to addictions.The real, real story is why Lee is a loner, without a family, living a completely different life from his late brother, a fisherman in his tiny home town. The back story that unfolds is worse than the tragedy of losing his only sibling and having to become his nephew’s guardian.It took me a while to get used to Patrick, in the main, carrying on being a typical teenager even while planning the funeral of his only active parent. But, I understand everyone handles grief differently and some part of him clearly new he was going to lose his dad sooner rather than later. We do see him crumble at one time, when a memory is triggered by opening a freezer door. We’ve all been there.We do get to meet his mother Elise, briefly and here we’re introduced to more awful family history. Knowing however, that Mathew Broderick is going to make an appearance, I am waiting for it and he turns ups as quite the silver-haired, creepy, Christian fiancé of Elise.With so much death and misery, somehow this film turns out to be quite a beautiful. An honest tale of love, family and loss.8/10