Four flawed characters populate the otherwise vacant lobby of a Manhattan residential apartment building in Kenneth Lonergan’s compelling if meandering comic drama Lobby Hero. Each of them has justification for his moral transgressions, but we soon begin to question whether any of them deserves the designation of hero. Unlikely to merit hero status is the play’s … [Read more...]
‘Manchester by the Sea’: Enduring grief, finding grace
Throughout Manchester by the Sea, women fall, sometimes literally, at the feet of Casey Affleck’s brooding handyman. While on the job — albeit in the unromantic pursuit of unclogging a toilet — he overhears a client confessing her attraction to him, on the phone to a friend, through the bathroom walls. It leads to nothing more than a generous tip. At a bar, a comely female … [Read more...]