Ooh buddy. I won't lie, I did not go into this film with an open mind based on the allegations against Casey Affleck lately and how weirdly dismissive it seemed like a lot of people were being about it during his campaign for an acting Oscar [which he won]. But I will say this. I think you could tell from the days of Dawson's Creek that Michelle Williams was really terrific and I think she's only gotten better. She makes so much of the little time she has on screen and during the big confrontation/attempted reconciliation scene towards the end of the film you can feel her heartbreak, she breaks down in such a realistic way that it is truly difficult to watch. Affleck's performance is good too although, like I said, knowing what I know makes it hard to watch unbiased. The direction is also good although I found the storytelling structure to be confusing at first, and for some reason (maybe I'm just an idiot) it took me like 10 minutes into the series of flashbacks in the beginning of the film to understand that Kyle Chandler's character was Affleck's big brother and not his dad. I don't know. I just got very mixed up on who everyone was in relation to everyone else. It becomes obvious later though. Everyone's doing really great work here, basically, yet I don't think this will be a film I'll ever watch again or necessarily recommend to people.
