Journey back to 'Manchester by the Sea' a universal story, says Casey Affleck

Actor Casey Affleck is shown in a scene from the film 'Manchester By The Sea.' (THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-TIFF-Claire Folger)

TORONTO -- It's unlikely most filmgoers have visited the quiet New England town that serves as the setting for "Manchester by the Sea," but one of the movie's key central themes will have universal appeal, says star Casey Affleck.

"The one and only story of human beings is going out into the world and coming home again," Affleck said in an interview Tuesday ahead of the movie's premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

"It's the story we've been telling since we started telling stories of 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey,"' he added, in reference to the famed works of Greek poet Homer. "You go out to war and then you come home again."

Affleck's character, Lee, is forced to make the pilgrimage from a Boston suburb back to his seaside hometown following the death of his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler of Netflix series "Bloodline") to care for his nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges.) Three-time Oscar nominee Michelle Williams portrays Lee's estranged wife, Randi.

Lee's return is fraught with a pain far deeper than the grief of losing his older sibling, as he is forced to revisit a difficult past he had hoped to keep buried when he left town.

Affleck said the earlier work of writer-director Kenneth Lonergan explored the connections individuals have between their early homes and childhood. He pointed to the filmmaker's 2000 drama "You Can Count On Me" about a single mother dealing with the return of her struggling younger brother.

"There's some tragedy in the guy's childhood and so he leaves home; and when he comes back, everything that happens in that house is really about that relationship to that childhood experience," Affleck remarked of the film, which starred Mark Ruffalo opposite Laura Linney.

"It also just seems like a very, very common story structure of leaving and coming back home, and having to sort of reconcile yourself to your past and trying to move forward."

The Toronto International Film Festival concludes on Sunday.