[Quick Summary: After his brother dies, a building custodian goes back to his hometown as his nephew's guardian, and faces the ghosts that haunt him.]
I did not expect to like this script as much as I did.
(A very reliable friend had told me, "Great dialogue. Too slow.")
Though I haven't seen the film yet, I found it deeply moving on the page.
Two thoughts:
1) It reads extremely fast. Always double points!
2) It is an unusual use of flashbacks to peer into the main character's (Lee) present state of mind. He experienced trauma a few years ago, but it is still raw.
His emotional state then = His emotional state now.
In the scene below, Lee makes a positive statement about Dr. Betheny --> The flashback expands on his POV of Dr. Betheny, but it is not an "information dump."
ex. "INT. HOSPITAL ELEVATOR
Dr. Muller and Lee ride down very slowly.
LEE: How is Dr. Betheny?
DR. MULLER: Oh, she's doing very well. She just had twin girls.
LEE: Oh yeah. Irene told me.
DR. MULLER: Apparently weigh about eleven pounds apiece. So she's gonna have her hands full for a while...I'll call her this afternoon and tell her what happened.
LEE: She was very good to him.
DR. MULLER: Yes she was.
EIGHT YEARS AGO --
INT. JOE CHANDLER'S HOSPITAL ROOM. DAY.
JOE CHANDLER, Lee's older brother by five years, is lying in the hospital bed. There's a close resemblance between them.
ELISE, Joe's wife, the same age as Joe, pretty, anxious and high-strung -- stands near to STANLEY CHANDLER -- Lee and Joe's father, 70s. He sits in one chair. LEE sits in another.
They are all listening to DR. BETHENY, 30s. She is small, intense, very serious and focused and level-headed, but thoroughly well-meaning and decent. The bed area is curtained off from the other patients in the room.
DR. BETHENY: The disease is commonly referred to as congestive heart failure --
ELISE: Oh my God!
DR. BETHENY: Are you familiar with it?
ELISE: No...!
JOE: Then what are you sayin' "oh my God" for?
ELISE: Because what is it?
JOE: She's tryin' to explain it to us, honey. I'm sorry, Dr. Beth...uh...
DR. BETHENY: Betheny
JOE: I'm sorry. I can never get it right.
DR. BETHENY: Don't worry about it. Not a problem."
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: Flashbacks are interesting when used to show a stuck character's present state of mind.
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
by Kenneth Lonergan
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