Manchester by the Sea: Tests, Flashbacks & Characters That Don’t Change

[spb_column width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] By, Jacob Krueger [/spb_text_block] [/spb_column] [divider type="standard" text="Go to top" full_width="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [fullwidth_text alt_background="none" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] MANCHESTER BY THE SEA: Tests, Flashbacks & Characters That Don't Change We’re used to seeing character driven movies that are about characters going through great personal changes. We’re used to watching these kind of family stories, especially dysfunctional family stories. We’re used to watching stories about families coming together. That’s because most movies are built around a very simple principle, which is the principle of change-- the idea that characters are undergoing this journey so that they can change. Normally we think of this as a change for the better. One of the interesting things about Manchester By the Sea’s structure is that this character, Lee Chandler, played by Casey Affleck, is a character that wants to change but simply cannot. This is a movie about a character who wants to change but can’t, failing to overcome his demons. So this week, we’re going to talk about movies where the character does not change. There are a couple of different kinds of these movies, but Manchester By the Sea falls into a very specific category of them. This is a movie that I call a Test Movie. You can almost think of it as the other side of the coin from a Change Movie. For most movies, the structure exists for a very simple purpose; take a character who starts at point A and move them to Z. So, if you have a character who’s extraordinarily kind, we might move that character to a place of selfishness. If we have a character who is incredibly selfish we might move that character through a place of kindness. Now, some Change Movies work like a circle. For example, if you think of a movie like The Wrestler, it starts with a character whose life revolves around wrestling, and we move him the furthest we can move him from there, which is to a place of actually integrating with society. We get him a girlfriend and a relationship with his daughter. He gets a job at a deli that he loves, making him feel like he once did in the ring. Then what we do in the second half is take everything away. We take away his daughter, the job and the girlfriend and we ended back where we started. In these Circular Change Movies, a character doesn’t go back to where they started it in the same way; they go back in a different way. The Wrestler is not the same person he was at the beginning, even though he’s changed and then changed back. But most movies and TV shows based on a Change Structure take a more A-Z approach to change. For example: Breaking Bad: A mild-mannered professor turns into cold-blooded meth dealing killer and guess what—he loves it! Another example is American Beauty. The character starts off afraid to stand up to his wife and be himself, goes through a total nervous breakdown while he is lustfully pursuing his 16-year-old daughter’s best friend, and somehow transforms himself into a person who’s at peace with his universe. These are the standard change movies we’re used to seeing. Then we have test movies, and there are lots of them. Raiders of the Lost Ark is a test movie. It’s a story about a character who does not change. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones is the same at the beginning as he is in the end. Nothing changes, but he does get tested. He gets tested in his desire to pursue the Ark of the Covenant. Any normal, reasonable human being tested in the way that Indiana Jones is tested would simply decided “Screw this Ark. I’m going to go back to teaching where it’s nice and safe,” but Indiana Jones consistently makes the opposite decision. He doesn’t change but he does get tested: Is he willing to reconcile with his ex-girlfriend in order to get this Ark? Is he willing to stand up to this scary Nazi with the burn in his hand or confront his fear of snakes in order to get this Ark? Is he willing to confront the power of the Nazi Army to get this Ark? Is he willing to confront the face of G-d in order to get this Ark? Is he willing to confront the meaninglessness of his work, when that Ark ends up in the basement of the museum? Indiana Jones doesn’t change; he gets tested. The way we test him is we put him in situations where any other character would change, but that character refuses to change. Forrest Gump is an example of a test movie. Forrest Gump doesn’t change. Forrest Gump maintains his innocence in the face of the historical events of the 60’s that made all of America change. So, Forrest Gump living through the horror of the sixties, living through a world where people die and get shot for no reason, horrible things happen; your best friend dies, your Lieutenant Dan  that you look up to becomes a bitter, suicidal veteran, your mother dies, Jenny doesn’t love you and Jenny’s dying. In the face of political upheaval, Forrest Gump holds onto his innocence in the face of everything that would have changed us. To go to the darker side, a movie like Pan’s Labyrinth is a test movie; a story of a little girl who believes she is the inheritor of a fairy kingdom-- who’s been banished from that fairy kingdom and forced to live in the world of men. The world of men she lives in is an ugly world. Her beautiful mother has married a Fascist Captain, a high-up in the Spanish army during the Spanish Civil War, and she is now literally eating at the table of Fascism. Fascism is protecting her, feeding her, giving her clothes… And all she wants is to return to that fairy Kingdom. She meets a Faun in the woods that offers a way to rescue herself from this fate, and all she has to do for her dream to come true is three tests that the Faun has created for her. What happens is, she gets tested in pursuing the tests. In her refusal to blindly listen to the Faun, or to the temptations of her desire, and in doing so, she holds onto her pure heart. So, her mother gets sick and she chooses not to do the test. She’s asked finally for one drop of her brother’s blood and she chooses not to do the tests. There’s one little moment where she wavers a little bit. There’s a moment where she eats a grape from a table she’s been forbidden, but for the most part the character doesn’t change. What happens is even in the face of the opportunity to inherit her fairy kingdom, have everything she ever wants in the world, this character hold on to her purity. She holds on to her innocence-- and of course this is a story about Fascism, right? This is a story about what do you do in the face of fascism? Do you let it change you, or do you refuse to change? And what’s really beautiful about this movie, without ruining it for you, is that she is both rewarded and punished. She suffers both the ultimate horror of Fascism and also the ultimate beauty of holding on to who she really is. So these are all examples of test movies in really big budget commercial films. We don’t see these Test Movie structures as often in character driven movies, particularly in family driven movies. That's because, for one thing, this is not the story we normally want to see about our family. We want to feel like our family is going to change, like things are going to get better, like the dysfunctions are going to go away, like some day we will finally hear each other and listen to each other. And when we fall in love with characters, we want to believe that they’re going to become better people today than they were yesterday, because we want to believe that we’re going to be better people than we were yesterday. So, usually, in these kind of Sundance-y films-- in these independent films-- if you think of Me Earl and The Dying Girl, for example, if you think of a movie like The Celebration, if you think of a movie like Margot At The Wedding, if you think about a movie like Secrets and Lies, if you think of a movie like Junebug, if think of any of these little independent films-- character driven films-- usually what we’re used to watching is characters going through a huge changes in relation to their family: coming together with their family, breaking away from their family, somehow reconciling the problems of family. And so, let's set aside for a moment its strengths and weaknesses, because Manchester By The Sea has a lot of both. What is most interesting to me about Manchester By The Sea is the emergence of a less seen kind of family drama-- a movie about a character who doesn’t change. So if you think of the character of Lee Chandler, played by Casey Affleck, this is a character who has a very difficult past. There are some spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen the movie… Lee Chandler’s backstory is that a long time ago, he was in a beautiful and broken relationship with a woman he truly loved and who truly loved him. And he wasn’t a perfect husband and she wasn’t a perfect wife. She had a drug problem. He had a partying problem. He had an irresponsibility problem. He was a very difficult man for her to be with. He was not the best father to ever live, but you can see they loved each other, that there was a genuine love between them. And then one day, he’s having a big party with his friends, he’s high on cocaine, his wife comes down and kicks everyone out, he throws a couple of logs on the fire, goes to buy some more beer, and by the time he gets back, his house has burned to the ground and his children are dead. The only one to survive is his wife and, of course, they end up broken up. So this is the past, this is the backstory of the character. In this movie we find out about the backstory, but oftentimes the backstory isn’t even important.