This confusingly named film is neither set in nor is connected in any manner with the city of Manchester in England. Rather it is set in a tiny town in the US whose full name is indeed Manchester-by-the-Sea. Along with La La Land, it gained prominence from its multiple Oscar nominations earlier this year but only ended up winning two of them, for Best Original Screenplay and for Best Actor for Casey Affleck’s performance.

Affleck plays Lee Chandler, a taciturn janitor who lives in a basement apartment and has no social life. One day he gets a call that forces him to return to Manchester, which we infer is his hometown. His brother has passed away after a prolonged period of illness and he needs to take charge of his teen-aged nephew Patrick. Flashbacks reveal his relationships with various people and we learn that he was a much different person in the past. In fact, we see that he is happily married with three children and he has excellent relationships with both his brother and Patrick. In the present, we see that Patrick is no longer a child and has plenty of friends around him. Despite Patrick’s attempts to draw Lee into his social circle, he remains reluctant and is further dismayed when he learns that he is to be Patrick’s guardian according to his brother’s will. Naturally there is a terrible tragedy that altered the trajectory of Lee’s life and the rest of this film is all about how he continues to struggle with it.

Manchester by the Sea is a slow-moving, relatively lengthy piece about grief and remorse. This counts as a bit of a spoiler, but the most unique aspect of it is that the film never offers any resolution or even any catharsis to Lee’s suffering. According to interviews, this is precisely what director Kenneth Lonergan intended who stated that even those who never get over their grief deserve a movie of their own as well. Lee is capable of noting how popular Patrick is and reacts with some bemusement but is unable to any more emotionally engaged than that. Despite the efforts of everyone around him to connect with him, he always pulls away and lapses into awkward silences. It’s uncomfortable to watch which I suppose is the point. The visuals complement the mood perfectly with bleak colors of winter and the picturesque and serene shots of the small town.

Unfortunately as ambitious as this film is, it lacks the gravitas to carry its weight well. Lonergan does his best but he isn’t capable of filling the empty moments and spaces with meaning in the way that someone like Tsai Ming-Liang can. Subplots like how well Patrick is carrying on with life after his father’s death actually lessen the emotional heft of what ought to be a pure meditation of grief. The overall impression is of a film that tries to act as if it were great but is too simple and has too little going on to be worthy of the appellation. It may well be that Affleck’s performance is the best that Hollywood can offer in 2016 but I don’t think it’s all that impressive by international standards.

By all means, watch this film as it really is quite good. However it made me think that perhaps my standards of what constitutes a great film has been raised so much that this actually ended up being a bit of a disappointment.