Mystic River
We don’t often go out of town to see first run movies, but on the long weekend at Heidelberg, our grandson, Josh and I traveled to Toledo to spend some time with our daughter, Laurel, and we went to see Mystic River. Josh is a freshman at Heidelberg, and he is living with us this year. Percy and his brothers took advantage of the fine autumn weather to visit their sister in Virginia.
The Toledo Blade reviewer had given this movie its highest rating, five stars. The actors were all well known. Laurel was willing, and we had time for a matinee.
The mood of the picture is somber, even at the beginning when we see three boys, maybe nine years old, playing hockey in the street. They live in a Boston neighborhood, close-knit, but gritty. Families appear to be just getting by.
The boys lose their hockey puck down a sewer drain and look for something else to do. Ah, some irresistible wet cement. They start to write their names in it with a stick. Two men slow their car and stop. They appear to be policemen. One of the boys, Dave, is forced to get in the car with them. We see his unhappy face looking out the back window as he rides away. He is held in a basement, tortured and molested. He escapes but never really recovers from this evil event. The boys stop spending time together as if the others were painful reminders of that devastating time when all their lives were darkened by this tragedy.
Then the scene changes; the boys are grown men with families. Dave, the boy who was forced to ride off with the men, and Jimmy still live in the old neighborhood, and Sean has left the neighborhood and become a detective.
Their lives become entwined again when Jimmy’s daughter is murdered and Sean and his partner are assigned to the crime. Jimmy is driven by grief and rage to try to find his daughter’s killer himself. Circumstantial evidence seems to heighten the suspicion that Dave is involved. Under the direction of Clint Eastwood, this tale becomes a gripping, intense experience. It is based on a best selling novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane. The grown-up boys and their families are complex and fascinating. Every major player has been nominated for an Academy Award.
Rolling Stones magazine writes, ‘’It is haunting and hypnotic. Sean Penn, an ex-con, runs the local grocery store. Do you want to see screen acting at its riskiest and most riveting? Watch Penn.’’
Time magazine writes, ‘’Every face tells a story, Sean Penn’s could be the Great American novel. It’s long and tough, completely weathered, as if battered by hurricanes, twisters, unseasonable dry spells. The high hair, dudish sideburns and smoldering glower give him the aspect of a mug on a WANTED poster – a lifer more than a lover … Penn’s face is a confrontation with the dangerous unknown. It dares you to go on the bumpy ride that is so often a Sean Penn film. ‘’
Tim Robbins, grown-up Dave, is superb. He is well meaning, kind of stumbling and unfocussed. His wife, Celeste, is an anguished, sympathetic character. She is played by Marcia Gay Harden who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Pollock. Laura Linney plays Jimmy’s wife, Annabelle. She is a force to be reckoned with, protective of her husband and her family and fiercely loyal. Kevin Bacon is Sean, the detective returned to the neighborhood. He has problems in his marriage and is unhappy. He and Lawrence Fishburn, his partner, named Whitey, give us insight into police tactics and problems.
The movie was filmed in Boston and they had to close three lanes of traffic on the Tobin-Mystic Bridge to create one of the scenes. Great care has been taken to recreate the neighborhood. The wake for Jimmy’s murdered daughter, the bar scenes, even the parade, all seem authentic to me, but then I’ve never been to Boston.
For me this was a film that really drew me in to the story, an intense experience and something to think about for several days.
– Mary