Reviewing Movies

Another Amazon production and yet another film about ordinary people. Adam Driver plays Paterson a bus driver in Paterson, New Jersey. Much of the action takes place as he is driving his bus and the actor actually got certified as a bus driver. The actor is not a Hollywood Matineé idol. A creature of habit his one avocation is writing poetry which he keeps in a secret notebook. We hear the conversations that go on in the bus he drives as he watches the road and maneuvers the bus along its route. In the morning he grabs his watch, hugs his wife and sits to have a bowl of Cheerios. Walks to work with a lunch box in hand then mounts his bus. In this city drivers are not encased in a security wall. At the end of the day he takes the reverse route home lunch box in hand checking the mailbox which he then straightens and enters his small saltbox home. Marvin his English Bulldog gives a grunting growl in welcome. After dinner he clips the lease on the dog and they take a familiar stroll that includes sit-stay with leash pushed over a pipe while he enters a local bar for a pint served by an aging man of colour who greets him by name. Next morning he again picks up the watch, checks the time and the mundane quotidian repeats itself.

Casey Affleck was and is Ben’s little brother who played the younger sibling in the back seat of Ben’s car in Good Will Hunting who couldn't afford his hamburger. Twenty years later he can trade Oscars with his Brother who has at least two but none for acting. Keeping it all in the family so to speak Matt Damon produced this opus. The director also wrote the screen play for which he too got an Oscar. Produced by Amazon. 

What makes this film special is the fact that the characters are ordinary down on their luck working people. Lee Chandler is the caretaker/handyman for a group of Brownstones in the Boston area. 

Unlike the Mr. America wannabes on Riverdale Casey does not affect a six-pack though he shovels snow with alacrity. The sound quality on this disk is somewhat lacking making the dialogue often hard to follow. The language used is working class, the behaviour rough and tumble, bar room brawls and on ice fights. The classical often sacred music in the score often seems off-kilter with the action onscreen. 

Lee and his 16-year-old nephew Patrick love one another but their relationship is not touch feely. Through flash backs we learn of the tragedies that have caused Lee to shut down emotionally and why coming back home is the last thing he wants to do. Both Lee and his brother Joe are divorced. 

From IMDB one learns the production team shot in Manchester by the Sea and its police chief, fire, and EMT Staff participated in the filming, ironic because on camera the paramedics have trouble getting the gurney into the truck. 

A great deal of repressed emotion makes this a difficult film to watch at times. Lee expresses his in anger which comes out when he is drinking though in bar room brawls, not at home. This film makes the audience feel uncomfortable Casey’s performance obviously the kind that members of the Academy admire.

Upon second watching I found more depth in the inter-relationships as I was less shocked though the fist through the window still startled me as unexpected. 

The original Star Trek was a 3-year TV Series. These big budget extravaganzas cost hundreds of millions as evidenced by the 5 movie studio’s logos we have to sit through before the actual movie starts. Most of the action does not take place on the Enterprise the crew’s penchant for destroying trillion dollar vessels seeming to continue as does Scotty’s ability to get ancient relics back into space. Simon Pegg who plays Montgomery Scott had a hand in writing this one. Kirk, Bones and Spock are the essential trio and we learn of the death of Nimoy both in the script and in a memorial in the credits which also mention Anton on a first name basis only. The ability to survive space exploration does not extend to surviving old age or wonky earth technology.

As the saying goes it blows up real good and in the movies sound still manages to travel through space.