History YMMV / ManchesterByTheSea

* OvershadowedByControversy: Creator/CaseyAffleck's harassment accusations got brought up again when the "Me too" movement started up after his Oscar win, ultimately causing him to back out of the Oscar tradition of the acting winners being announced by the previous year's winner of the opposite gender, knowing full well how awkward it would be.
** That tradition made things pretty awkward when he was getting his award, too, as the previous year's Best Actress winner, Creator/BrieLarson, made no secret of the fact that she did not think people should be giving awards to a man accused of sexual harassment and did not like being the one to do it.

* NightmareFuel: How Lee's dilemma came to be. [[spoiler: He lit a fire to warm the house up, inadvertently puts too many logs on the fire without knowing it, leaves the house to buy beer, comes back to find his decision resulted in the house burning down with [[AdultFear his kids still asleep]]. Then he, [[BungledSuicide upon confessing this to the police, tries to kill himself at the police station]]]]. AdultFear at its finest.

** A couple in New York killed their adopted special needs son in a manner inspired by the film, carrying it out just hours after they'd seen it.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: This film is ''grim'', and it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the way the characters deal with their tragedies and mourning. Even people who usually parody movies (like Website/TheEditingRoom) pointed out how difficult this movie is to satirize.

* OvershadowedByControversy: Casey Affleck's harassment accusations got brought up again when the "Me too" movement started up after his Oscar win, ultimately causing him to back out of the Oscar tradition of the acting winners being announced by the previous year's winner of the opposite gender, knowing full well how awkward it would be.

** Randi. Despite the fact that Michelle Williams only gets a few minutes of screentime outside of flashbacks, she conveys an incredible amount of long-endured suffering in the scenes she has.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Sometimes, grief is something that one has to learn to live with, rather than completely recover from. Even then, that is often much easier said than done. In fact, this is the reason why the film was created in the first place.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Sometimes, grief is something that one has to learn to live with, rather than completely recover from. Even then, that is often much easier said than done.

* {{Narm}}:
** Many reported that Creator/MatthewBroderick's appearance took them out of the film during his scenes at best, or making theaters burst into unintentional laughter at worst.

* InternetBackdraft: Casey Affleck's sexual harassment allegations from 2010 (for which he was sued, but it was settled out of court) were brought into the open again when he started to seriously dominate the awards circuit. Despite the fact that, as mentioned before, it was settled out of court, this led some to suggest or attempt a boycott of the film and demand he not be considered in the Best Actor race. This, however, didn't prevent the film from performing well in the box office, winning two awards (including Best Actor for Affleck), and retaining its reputation as one of the finest of 2016.

** Though Lucas Hedges gives a mostly great performance, his breakdown during the freezer scene comes off as more of a slapstick moment rather than the tragic scene it's meant to be.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Sometimes grief is something that one has to learn to live with, rather than completely recover from. And even then, that might be much easier said than done.

* InternetBackdraft: Casey Affleck's allegations of sexual harassment from 2010 (for which he was sued, but it was settled out of court) were brought into the open again when he started to seriously dominate the awards circuit. Despite the fact that, as mentioned before, it was settled out of court, this led some to suggest or attempt a boycott of the film and demand he not be considered in the Best Actor race. This, however, didn't prevent the film from performing well in the box office, winning two awards (including Best Actor for Affleck), and retaining its reputation as one of the finest of 2016.

** Though his onscreen role is very small Lee's father especially at the police station witnessing [[spoiler: Lee's BungledSuicide]] which happened mere hours after [[spoiler: his grandchildren died in a fire.]] The poor man lurches out of his seat in pain and shock, clearly wanting to do something but unable to intervene.

** Many reported that Matthew Broderick's appearance took them out of the film during his scenes at best, or making theaters burst into unintentional laughter at worst.

** Though his onscreen role is very small Lee's father especially at the police station witnessing [[spoiler: Lee's BungledSuicide]] which happened mere hours after [[spoiler: his grandchildren died in a fire.]] The poor man lurches out of his seat in pain and shock, clearly wanting to do something but unable to intervene.

* InternetBackdraft: Casey Affleck's allegations of sexual harassment from 2010 (for which he was sued, but it was settled out of court) were brought into the open again when he started to seriously dominate the awards circuit. Despite the fact that, as mentioned before, it was settled out of court, this led some to suggest or attempt a boycott of the film and demand he not be considered in the Best Actor race. This, however, didn't prevent the film from performing well in the box office, winning two awards (including Best Actor for Affleck), and retaining its reputation as one of the finest of 2016. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment And that's as far as this will go]].

* FunnyMoments: There are several, which is hardly a surprise as one of the film's main themes is managing to not lose a sense of humour in an extremely tragic situation.