Mystic River Review

by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)
October 10th, 2003

MYSTIC RIVER
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Jimmy (Sean Penn), Sean (Kevin Bacon) and Dave (Tim Robbins) were childhood friends splintered apart after young Dave was kidnapped from their midst by pedophiles who held him for four days. A generation later, the murder of Jimmy's nineteen year old daughter Katie (Emmy Rossum, "Passionada") reunites the three in the strange patterns and secrets held in the "Mystic River."
Clint Eastwood may be adding another Oscar to his shelf this year if "The Lord of the Rings" juggernaut doesn't swamp his richly textured, dark film. Brian Helgeland's ("A Knight's Tale") adaptation of David Lehane's novel is true to the source, yet Eastwood and his perfectly cast ensemble have added layers that give this blue collar multi-generational tragedy Shakespearean scope. It is one of those rare films that surpasses the impact of the book.

Straight arrow Sean and malleable Dave won't go along with Jimmy's idea of 'borrowing' a car, so he uses a stick to write his name in wet cement instead. Just as Dave, the third, is about to scratch out a 'v,' a black car approaches with two men, one of whom gets out, flashes a badge, and begins questioning the kids about destroying municipal property and where they live. Dave, the only one of the trio who doesn't live on the street they're standing on, is bullied into the back of the car just as he and the other two begin sensing that something isn't right about these guys. As with Katie's murder, the horror Dave endures isn't shown but implied, with one quick shot of a looming shadow entering a basement and flashes of Dave's escape flight through the woods.
Dave the adult is a troubled man with a young boy of his own. He's still connected to Jimmy as his wife, Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden, "Casa de los Babys"), is Jimmy's second wife Annabeth's (Laura Linney, "The Mothman Prophecies") cousin. Celeste begins to torture herself with doubts when Dave returns home from a bar at 3 a.m. covered in someone else's blood and wounded by the man he says mugged him, whom he may have killed. The next morning she sees no note of a possible dead man in the paper, nor the next day...
Jimmy, crazy about his eldest daughter Katie who was all he had left after his first wife died during a two year jail stint sixteen prior, is concerned when she doesn't appear for her younger half-sister's first Communion. When police cars scream by the Church steps, Jimmy follows to a crime scene containing his daughter's car stained with blood. After muscling in with the aid of the aptly named Savage brothers (Kevin Chapman, "Blow" and Adam Nelson, "The Pledge"), Jimmy learns the news from State Police homicide detective Sean. Jimmy is shocked to learn that his daughter was planning to run away with Brendan Harris (Tom Guiry, "Black Hawk Down"), a neighborhood boy he has an irrational hatred for who visited his corner market that very morning asking for Katie, and demands that the kid be checked out.

The story, which is about how the past comes back to haunt the present, leads the audience and its characters to certain conclusions which it then unravels when the ironic truth is laid bare. Names from the past which begin to pop up in Sean and his partner Whitey Powers's (Laurence Fishburne, "The Matrix Reloaded") investigation, weave their way into the history of the present as we learn just how much events of the past shaped the character of those three small boys.

Sean Penn's only competition for the Best Actor Oscar may be his own performance in "21 Grams" should he cancel himself out. Looking like a young/old DeNiro, Penn gives a devastating performance as a man with such intense love of family he would do anything to protect them despite the guilt he carries around (Whitey tells Sean that he could tell Jimmy had done time because of the tension in his shoulders). Penn demands an emotional response to his grief, yet doesn't shrink from making Jimmy a tough, conflicted character. Robbins plays Dave as the ghost of a man. When something sets off the memories of his criminal abuse, his tortured attempts to convey his feelings to his wife confuses her, as it does us. Robbins quiet performance achieves its emotional response with a slower build, upon reflection. Bacon is quite solid as Sean, whose past association with these men blind him to certain possibilities. We see the impact of that long ago event on him in the state of his marriage. Bacon speaks to his absent wife, who calls him and says nothing. Over the course of the film, Bacon begins to react differently to these calls, eventually breaking through his own emotional barriers.

Support is equally outstanding. Marcia Gay Harden has the showiest role as Dave's suspicious and fearful wife, but she doesn't overplay it, gaining our sympathy. The film's final scene, where Celeste has become a ghost on the street just like Dave, is heartbreaking. Linney is pure Boston blue collar, mostly in the background until a relationship defining speech to Jimmy near film's end. Fishburne is very good as the outsider who tries to stabilize Sean with his own, more balanced, assessment of their investigation. Chapman and Nelson also make their mark as the neighborhood toughs who remain loyal to their former crime boss Jimmy. It is hard to believe these actors are not really brothers. The kids cast to play the childhood versions of the three main characters are nicely matched and extras all add authenticity to the Boston locations. And everyone in "Mystic River" gets the Boston accent right.

Eastwood connects the past and present with mirror shots (cinematography by Tom Stern, "Blood Work") across time - Dave looking out a car's back window as a boy and as an adult, taken away by two men who mean to do him harm each time; the neighborhood shot that zooms into the boys before Dave is abducted is repeated, a zoom out from the broken body of Katie. Joel Cox's editing is perfectly attuned to the story's emotional rhythms and complex cross-generational cycles. Eastwood's decision to film in Boston gives the film added dimension with perfectly chosen locations in the three-decker communities that surround the historic city.

Warner Brothers should pat themselves on the back for distributing "Mystic River," a film whose old fashioned story telling and rich characterizations guided with surehanded mastery by Clint Eastwood betters almost every independent film released this year.

A

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