Watch out for . . .

CASEY AFFLECK (far right) who stars in director and writer Kenneth Lonergan’s film Manchester By The Sea. Affleck’s Lee Chandler is a loner who once had a family. Now he’s working in apartment buildings as a handyman: a job he clearly loathes, but which allows him to remain isolated from his kin and the few friends he has left. When his brother dies, Lee returns to his home town to look after his teenage nephew (superb newcomer Lucas Hedges). But going back isn’t easy. He keeps saying he just can’t ‘beat it’. I’m not going to tell you what Lee

can’t face, because it hit me like a thunderbolt when I saw the film at the Telluride Film Festival, and I had no idea what was coming. Affleck’s performance is one for the ages. Grief is etched on his face and his eyes do most of the talking. Is it the performance of the year? Yeah, I think it’s the real deal. Catch it at the BFI London Film Festival next month. ROONEY MARA and Ben Mendelsohn, who star in Benedict andrews’s gripping film Una. It’s a purely cinematic adaptation of David Harrower’s Blackbird. Rooney (at her extraordinary best) plays the title character: a young woman who pays a visit to the man who sexually abused her when she was 13. andrews, whose directorial debut this is, has made a fascinating movie. To be sure, it’s disturbing, but to my mind not voyeuristic. Producers Jean Doumanian, Film 4 and West end Films have come up with something that will become the topic of much debate. It certainly was at Telluride. LAURA PITT-PULFORD, who will assume the title role in Jessica Swale’s play about the bawdy actress (and mistress of Charles II) Nell Gwynn when the English Touring Theatre takes the Shakespeare’s Globe production on the road for an eight-date tour, starting at the Lowry theatre in Salford on March 1 and ending at the Theatre Royal, Bath (from April 25). Gugu Mbatha-Raw created the part at the Globe, and Gemma Arterton took over when it was staged in the West End.