The quiet comfort and familiarity of coastal Manchester’s tree-lined historic downtown with its small antique shops, used bookstore, and restaurants has made it the perfect backdrop for many a blockbuster film. When Hollywood wants New England, it comes to Manchester-by-the-Sea.
So, here are some of Manchester’s greatest hits, and what they’re all about:
Based on Marjorie Kellogg’s 1968 novel of the same name, Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon details the life and adventures of Junie Moon (Liza Minnelli), a woman disfigured in a battery acid attack by her boyfriend, and her disabled friends, Arthur and Warren, whom she meets along the way.
Based on the 1986 novel by Patti Dunn, Mermaids is set in the 1960s and follows a young woman, Charlotte Flax, as she struggles with her mother’s irresponsible parenting and flamboyance. Longing for structure, she is excited when the family relocates to Eastport, MA, which is near a convent.
Written by the author of Atonement, Ian McEwan, The Good Son follows the psychopathic Henry and his cousin Mark Evans as Mark repeatedly attempts to foil Henry’s plots to murder his own family.
Based on the novel by Cathleen Schine, follows a love letter through the fictional town of Loblolly-by-the-Sea. The letter is lost and found time and time again, resulting in the sparking of a different relationship with everyone who finds it.
State and Main is about a comedically troubled film production as the cast and crew scramble to find an old mill for their setting and are battered by bad luck along the way.
Manchester-by-the-Sea passes for Sitka, Alaska in The Proposal, in which a book editor falsifies a marriage with her employee in order to acquire a green card and continue living in New York. Unfortunately for her, she ends up actually falling in love with him.
I probably needn’t bother writing the plot for this one, but here it is nonetheless: Lee Chandler reluctantly returns to his home town of Manchester-by-the-Sea after the death of his brother, Joe, to care for his nephew, Patrick, and is forced to relive his past.
