The One With "Mystic River"

I saw this film today (yesterday) completely by accident. In the sense that I didn't know it would be on and I only briefly checked the RTE listing and happened upon the title. As soon as I did though, it was immediately my first priority as it was the "Sean Penn film I've wanted to see since it came out." What can I say… this movie affected, touched and impressed me in a way that very few had done before it and very few ever would. In fact, I don't remember the last film that touched me as deeply as this one did. Sean Penn is one of my favorite actors, and I'm pretty much used to his incredible acting ability, but his heart-wrenching performance in "Mystic River" still blew me away. Needless to say it was one Oscar that definitely went to the right place. Of course, not to undermine the supporting performances of Marcia Gay Harden (another favorite), Tim Robins (not a favorite, but I'd be a fool not to recognize his talent), Kevin Bacon (again, a wonderful actor) and the rest. This film is an emotional and psychological masterpiece. I'm not a fan of Clint Eastwood. I'm sorry, I'm just not. And yes, I've seen some of his films, and neither hit the right chord with me, but this one… this one left me breathless and speechless. Whoever asks, I recommend this film a hundred times over and a hundred times again.



The movie opens with three 11 year old boys playing on the street. They spot a wet cement square on the sidewalk and decide to write their names in it. Sean and Jimmy do, but just as Dave is half through his name, a car pulls over and a man walks out of it, pretending to be a cop on the lookout for troublemakers. He asks the boys for their addresses, and consequently forces Dave into the car (seeing as he's the only one who doesn't live on that street), supposedly to go talk to his parents. We are left with Jimmy and Sean watching as the car drives away with Dave in it. Only four days later does he manage to escape the pedophile that held him captive in a basement and return home, but he is never the same. The boys grow up into men and the cement dries out… with Dave's name still incomplete, indicating that the lives of all three of them stopped in that particular moment and this moment is now forever "carved in stone", and also that we already know that Dave's story would never be complete.


Neither Sean, nor Dave, nor Jimmy strayed too far from the neighborhood. Their friendship is gone, but they are still tied together with the invisible strings of that one fateful moment, and the cement plaque is still on that street, and now Dave walks there every day, walking his son Michael to and from school. He has become a middle-class working man; somewhat quiet and reclusive, still haunted by the ghosts of those four days and emotionally and psychologically deeply scarred. His dark secret is safely kept from his son, and his wife, who walks on eggshells around him and is full of uncertainty and doubt about her husband's behavior – an expected psychological response of someone in her condition. She would not ask the question that hovers between them, but she can't allow her fears to rest either because he keeps resurrecting them with everything he does. Sooner rather than later, she would explode… and that final straw would be one from which there is no turning back.


Jimmy is an ex-con whose life deteriorated into crime more or less since adolescence and he traces his entire life back to that one fateful moment, supposedly believing he was reborn into what he has become because he got "spared". What if he had gotten into that car, he keeps wondering… Katie would have never been born. His daughter was the second most important event in his life as it was for her that he came around after he had been released from prison. But there is more than minor cons in Jimmy's past; there is also murder and a body lying on the bottom of Mystic River, and a fatherless family to whom he sends monthly and anonymously 500$ to supposedly appease his guilty conscience. He is a tough and somewhat bitter man, running a local store, and in a way also running their small community with his ex-cons friends. Inside his walls however, he is a loving husband and father to his three daughters, but most of all to his eldest, Katie, 19 year old and the apple of her father's eye. He is more protective and attentive to her than anyone; she is his angel, his treasure… until the day comes when the police find Katie's body.


Sean has become a police officer, and unlike Jimmy and Dave, whose wives are cousins yet they still lead separate lives, is not related to either of them and has not said more than the occasional 'hello' on the street to his childhood friends. He is Jimmy's opposite pole; the person who went up as Jimmy slid down; they are now on the opposite sides of the law, bound by those invisible strings that go through Dave, but what will happen if you take Dave out of the equation? He is the one that binds them together, yet ironically is the one keeping them safely apart. Take Dave out and they will have to face the fact they are now enemies. While Dave's wife is haunted and terrified, and Jimmy's wife is strong and influential, Sean's wife is the quiet one. She has run away with their baby daughter, whose name he doesn't even know and since then has been calling him regularly but never saying a word. He doesn't understand why, doesn't even know why she left, and no wonder as the reason she left was that he did not see her. He doesn't see what's right in front of him. He doesn't see his wife, doesn't hear her when her silence speaks volumes, doesn't know his daughter's name… all are symbolic of his distance. He distanced himself from his two friends more than they distanced themselves from one another. He repeatedly states they are no longer his friends, that he owes them no allegiance. Dave is tortured by the nightmare, Jimmy is haunted by it as his conscience, although he is a criminal and a murderer, is the most sensitive of the three and he feels guilt for being spared the horrors. Sean, as opposed to both of them, is in complete denial. He has cut himself off completely. What will he do when he finds Katie's body; what will he tell Jimmy? "God said you owed another marker. He came to collect"?


When Katie's body is found, the existence of these three men and even these three families are turned upside down once and for all and nothing is ever the same. This complicated yet seemingly simple story is told in performances, namely in that of the main character, Jimmy. Maybe it is the daughter in me and as much as the thought alone makes me shudder, I could not help but see my father in his situation, and I have to say that I literally broke into tears several times throughout the film, all of which were his scenes, the first and most powerful being the one when they discover Katie's body. His performance chilled me to the bone. When that broken father takes justice into his own hands, things become much more complicated, as he would avenge his daughter first and ask questions later, and suddenly there is another family due 500$ a month, only this time the victim is truly innocent.


One man is consumed by scars that are cutting deeper and deeper into him, but although he plans to be free from them, he never will be. Another man is so overcome by grief and anger that he will easily channel that frustration into the only person who is in retrospect responsible for it all: in a twisted way, in Jimmy's mind, the guilt for not being abducted instead of Dave originated in the fact that Dave was abducted in the first place. While a rational mind would know better and channel that guilt into kindness, a mind plagued with the worst kind of grief will cannel it into insane blame and suddenly the person he had felt compassion for will become his primary target, especially as false and misleading evidence keep dangerously falling into place. And what will do the man who must stop him? Will he keep him in check and try to prevent the inevitable or will he let it happen in hope they would all be finally free? Even more importantly, can they ever be truly free regardless of the conclusion?


This complex and stunning storytelling leaves no room for daydreaming. Full of symbolism and subtext, there is much to understand and attempt to analyze, and there is no room for worthless philosophy as there is no way to make the situation into something it's not. The grim facts of life are laid bare before you and you have little choice left but to accept them as they are.


In a nutshell… you couldn't put two hours of your time to a better use.

Mood: Impressed
Listening to: Greenday - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams