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Mystic River review
:. Director: Clint Eastwood
:. Starring: Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon
:. Running Time: 2:00
:. Year: 2003
:. Country: USA
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Clint Eastwood's Mystic River is a long and sinuous journey into murky waters. Opening with an aerial shot and then slowly descending into the heart of the city, the camera plunges us into the life of a Boston neighborhood whose apparent peacefulness reflects the quiet stream of the river. But under the surface, nothing is as it seems as an undercurrent of crime and trauma emerges along the investigation.
It's the murder of liquor store owner Jimmy's (Sean Penn) daughter that will act as a catalyst, introducing us to three interconnected central characters and have us follow an investigation that will dig up the neighborhood's scarred history like an archeological site. Jimmy, Sean (Kevin Bacon) and Dave (Tim Robbins) were living the typical life of neighborhood kids, playing in the streets and flirting with trouble until the day when Dave was abducted before their eyes by two old men and sexually abused for three days in a basement. Since then, their lives have drifted apart. Jimmy served some time in jail for burglary but now looks like a changed man, raising three kids and going to church. Sean has become a police detective who struggles with his loneliness since his wife left him and Dave is married with a son, still haunted by painful memories.
Eastwood has crafted a film of a rare subtlety, using Sean's investigation of the murder to confront the superficiality of appearance as a mere façade in a social context—here the neighborhood—in opposition with what really happens behind closed doors and metaphorically inside each human being. While the solution of the murder case is at some point predictable, what really matters here is the way characters are unfolded and how violence is approached.
Jimmy's portrait is the core of the film, slowly fading from bright colors into dark tones. When we are introduced to him, he is a happy family man and churchgoer who after the tragedy becomes a man of grief and remorse. We see him then asking for the help of some old notorious pals, taking the law into his own hands, until the last scene, where his role in the neighborhood is fully disclosed. Both his rage and violence in general are depicted the same way here. There is a constant underlying and rising tension, but when things finally explode it's either off-screen or in a weird quiet manner. Eastwood, who's known for his frontal and spectacular approach of violence, clearly breaks a tradition in this film. While Sean and Dave are clearly fighting their demons from the beginning of the film, the role of women here is pivotal (Marcia Gay Harden as Dave's wife and Laura Linney as Jimmy's), and are shown, like Jimmy, as contrasted and flawed human beings who show their real faces by the film's end.
Mystic River is also spiced with cultural commentary, from pedophile priests to overpriced coffeehouses, but what is interesting is how the film looks like a logical crossroads and continuation for three artists. For Eastwood, who built his career on vengeful characters (Hang 'em High, The Outlaw Josey Wales, High Plain Drifters, Pale Rider, Sudden Impact), it's a way, just like he did in Unforgiven, to close a chapter and to dissociate himself from the unwritten law of revenge that he has been symbolizing. As for Penn and Bacon, they both have been featured in films about the intricate and hidden life of a neighborhood: Penn returning in his old Mafia-ruled New York district in the beautiful State of Grace and Bacon dealing with the ghost of a girl murdered in his Chicago block in Stir of Echoes.
Eastwood successfully focuses on building the atmosphere: suffocating, intense and intimate, letting the actors carry the story from three different angles. Penn's performance is raw, at times slightly over-the-top; excess that actually fits the deep primitive instincts of his character who is more a wild animal, the leader of his pack, than a human being. Bacon plays well with restraint but it's Robbins who is the real emotional nerve of the film. This Mystic River is deep enough to drown you.
Fred Thom
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