Guilt, Grief, and Givenness in Manchester By The Sea

If the Lord gives and the Lord takes away,

how do we reckon with the blame and the shame that come in the wake of great tragedy? How do we triumph? How do we surrender? How do we move on? Rather than answering these questions, Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea poses another: what if we can’t? 

Tormented by grief and a greater guilt in the aftermath of an accidental housefire that claims the lives of his three young children, Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) blames only himself. After recounting the tragic night’s events in a county sheriff’s office and being told he’s free to go, he cannot stomach that there’s no lawful reprimand to be placed upon him. 

“So what, that’s it?” 

“Look Lee, you made a horrible mistake, like a million other people did last night. We’re not going to crucify you.” 

And so he will try to crucify himself. He expects a consequence of loss equal to that which he has caused. When it isn’t given to him through the law, he seeks it elsewhere. He pulls an officer’s gun out of its holster in the middle of the station and holds it to his head, pleading for them to allow him to pull the trigger. Ultimately prevented, he resorts alternatively to self-isolation, moving to Boston and away from everyone and everything that lives on as a reminder of his fatal mistake. 

Only when he receives the news of his brother Joe’s (Kyle Chandler) unexpected passing does Lee return to Manchester-by-the-Sea. It’s in this not-so-prodigal return that Lee is confronted with his first encounter of givenness since his time of all-consuming, self-denying guilt: he’s been given custody of Joe’s son, Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Am I my brother’s keeper? Joe’s final wish answers “yes,” acting as a last attempt to have Lee re-engage with the world after being apart from it for so long.

It’s a request Lee is wholly unprepared to receive. He cannot fathom that his brother would entrust his child to him after losing his own so haphazardly. He cannot allow himself to be trusted, to be given such a precious gift again at the risk of ruining it. As a result, he spends much of the film's runtime trying to remain as emotionally distant as he can, never truly giving any part of himself to anyone. While his body is back in the town defined by loss to him, his mind and his heart remain detached. While he does this so as to not risk hurting anyone again, he more importantly does it so that his hurt does not leave him. He cannot dare to accept love that he does not believe is deserved. He cannot free himself from the shadows of a past that lingers everywhere, nor can he forgive himself for being an imperfect person.  

It isn’t until the apologetic receives an apology that we as an audience begin to see the emotionless façade of Lee Chandler crack. While out running errands, he runs into his ex-wife, Randi (Michelle Williams), the mother of the three children he lost. Awkward and honest and raw, the encounter leads to an apology given to a man who deems himself solely at fault and unworthy of forgiveness. She sees a pain in him she recognizes in herself and for the first time sees him as a victim to the circumstances, too, rather than the perpetrator of something done unto her alone. 

“My heart was broken. It’s always going to be broken. And I know yours is broken, too. But I don’t have to carry – … I’m just sorry. I love you.”

Uncomfortable and shaken, he thanks her for the apology, declines her request to talk over lunch, and turns to leave the conversation as quickly as he entered it. However, she sees in him the despair that he tries to hide from everyone else and calls out the reality of how he has been living:

“You can’t just die.”

He denies that his life is one of defeat, the two talking over and through each other – her trying to give from the well of forgiveness she has learned and him trying to give from the little hope he has left. With every attempt she makes at seeing him, at truly acknowledging his hurt and his shame, he retreats, turning back in on himself at the recognition that pours from her lips. 

“I’m not. I'm not. I'm not.”

“I dont want to torture you. I just want to tell you that I was wrong.”

“There’s nothing there. There’s nothing there . . .”

The blame must be his. It is he who must be punished. There cannot be redemption for such a great loss. There cannot be forgiveness. He has made himself the exception and resigned himself to a life marked by regret and shame. Eventually, the toll of being back in Manchester-by-the-Sea is enough to lead him to retreat back to Boston, leaving custody of Patrick to a family friend. In not understanding his uncle’s choice, there comes the film’s most pivotal lines:

“Why can’t you stay?”

“I can't beat it. I can’t beat it. I’m sorry.”

In Lee Chandler's eyes, he’ll never overcome the sorrow, the grief, the loss that’s associated with this place and that this place associates with him. Most of all, he cannot beat the guilt. He lost everything the night of the fire: his children, yes, physically, and his wife, ultimately, but also himself, entirely. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing left to give and there’s nothing left to save. And herein lies the theological beauty of such a non-resolution: it was never his alone to beat. "I can’t beat it."

Often we think our burdens, our mistakes, our sins are ours to bear alone, and yet there’s a God whose body bled upon a cross to give us the permanent reminder that they’re not. They are His and, by His grace, He is ours. Lee Chandler isn’t wrong; he can’t beat it. But that doesn’t mean he has to live a life resigned to a kind of modern day self-flagellation. Manchester by the Sea leaves off where the true Christian life must begin. It cannot end with self; there has to be the pursuit of something more – of someone more who has given us to each other and given Himself to us all along. There is joy beyond sorrow, hope beyond despair, givenness beyond loneliness. There is triumph in the surrender of a life laid down, acknowledging that we cannot beat it – not alone.