in 17 years is “a staggering
American drama, almost
operatic in the heartbreak it
chronicles,” said A.A. Dowd
in AVClub.com. It wouldn’t be
nearly as powerful, though, if it
didn’t consistently make room
for the everyday headaches—like
a misplaced parked car—that
crop up in good times and bad.
The results are “almost unspeakably moving—and
at times, disarmingly funny.” Casey Affleck stars
as Lee Chandler, a handyman who’s nursing a deep
emotional wound when his brother dies and he
learns, after returning to his seaside hometown, that
his 16-year-old nephew is to be put in his custody.
Playing a man broken by past
tragedy, Affleck delivers “one
of the most fiercely disciplined
screen performances in recent
memory,” said A.O. Scott in The
New York Times. Even when
Lee makes a joke, “the force
of his pent-up emotion is terrifying.”
And Affleck’s co-stars
are nearly as fine, with Lucas
Hedges particularly good as
a teen trading loving jabs with his haunted uncle.
Michelle Williams is outstanding, too, “even by her
standards,” said Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles
Times. Playing Lee’s ex, she doesn’t get many scenes,
but when she does, she shows “a level of fearlessness
and raw vulnerability that will tear your heart out.”