Just because a story is well-told doesn’t mean it’s worth telling. From a performance and production value standpoint, Manchester is very well done, but so what? Let me save you 2 hours and 17 minutes: Terrible things happen to people. Some people recover. Some people, not so much. (This is actually a pretty accurate description of my job too.) Manchester follows Lee (ably played by Casey Affleck) after the sudden loss of his brother as he tries to care for his teenage nephew (Lucas Hedges), but Lee is not recovered from his own terrible, and in some ways unrecoverable, tragic loss of his own. The film is grindingly painful as it accurately portrays the subtle moments after trauma. Affleck and Hedges cantankerous bantering throughout lends comedy to the tragedy and Michelle Williams is superb as Lee’s ex-wife. Her halting, struggling monologue at the end alone makes the film worth watching. But ultimately, any story becomes worthy of telling when it moves us personally. Trying to care for a self-involved teenage boy who’s more interested in getting laid and playing hockey than he is in empathizing with a family member or facing his own loss? Yea, that’s a little too close to home as I’ve already checked that box in life. As for the rest of Manchester, it really felt like being at work to me and not out to the movies, driving home afterwards felt like I was clearing a call. Everyone involved in Manchester should be proud of their work, but that doesn’t mean that I enjoyed seeing it.