Mystic River

There have been plenty of times where I have gone into a film for the sake of reviewing it, expecting one type of movie only to find out that my preconceptions have been wrong. 2003’s Mystic River is one of those films. I was expecting a crime drama, something with some twists and some great writing and directing—it’s Clint Eastwood helming it after all—and instead I got something far more deep and introspective, with a mystery that caught me a bit off guard in the end. I had not read the book before seeing it and had no idea what the big reveal would be, therefore what unfolded for me over the course of two hours was both new to me and absolutely harrowing at the same time. 

And that is exactly how one should go into a film such as this: blindly. If you’ve read this book then you had this experience on the page already which is perfectly fine, but if you haven’t read the book, it is best to not look up a synopsis or read any reviews that discuss the plot in any way. To do so would be to spoil a rich and emotionally complex narrative that plays out in its own time and waits until the very last possible moment to reveal its secrets. 

The film opens up with three boys playing street hockey in an old Boston neighborhood. After losing their ball down into the sewers, they spot a small patch of wet cement sidewalk and decide to carve their names into it for future generations to see. The first two boys, Jimmy Markum and Sean Devine, go first, but when the third, Dave Boyle, starts to write his name, he is interrupted by two men claiming to be the police. Jimmy and Sean live within sight of the area, but Dave does not, so these two men force him into their car, ostensibly to drive him home and have words with his parents. But they are predators claiming to be the police, and they abduct him, holding and raping him for four days before he manages to escape. One of the kidnappers is killed in the escape, and the other is captured and kills himself in prison. Meanwhile, Dave suffers from the trauma of the event and never quite gets over it. 

Twenty-five years later, Jimmy (Sean Penn) is an ex-convict who now owns a convenience store, divorced, and remarried; Sean (Kevin Bacon) is a detective with the Massachusetts State Police whose pregnant wife has just left him, and Dave (Tim Robbins) is a blue-collar worker who has married Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden), the cousin of Annabeth Markum (Laura Linney), Jimmy’s second wife. Dave still struggles with the memories of his kidnapping, often having nightmares of the event and his eventual escape. 

One evening, Dave arrives home covered in blood, his hands cut and bleeding, claiming that he was mugged and beat the assailant, perhaps to death. The next day, Katie (Emmy Rossum), Jimmy’s daughter from his first marriage, is found dead, beaten, and shot in the head. She had been planning on eloping with her boyfriend, Brendan Harris (Tom Guiry), a young man her father despises, but disappeared the night they were going to leave together. Meanwhile, Sean and his partner “Whitey” Powers (Laurence Fishburn) are focusing in on Dave, whose alibi is weak at best and won’t give them a reasonable answer as to what he did to his hands. Dave’s wife is also getting suspicious as no mugger has been found beaten to death or admitted to the hospital.

This is a movie that wants you to think that Dave is the culprit while at the same time telling you that that is probably not the case. Dave is a tortured character, haunted by the events of his past and clearly emotionally unstable, but we don’t ever truly believe that he committed that murder. We also don’t believe his story about a mugger, which means that we spend the majority of the picture trying to piece together what must have really happened. It’s entirely possible that he could have found her body, and the blood on his hands, clothes, and in the trunk of his car are hers, and tried to hide it to avoid suspicion, but we don’t believe that he would be that calculating, either, at least not at first. So we are left wondering just what happened and whether he knows more than he is saying. 

This is perhaps Tim Robbins’s most celebrated performance, dwarfing what he did in The Shawshank Redemption and showing us that he is a better actor than he is generally credited for. It’s a complicated character that shows that he is not stupid, but he is damaged and hiding something, maybe even from himself. His interactions with his on-screen wife really give us an insight into his marriage and how that has been affected by his childhood trauma. Celeste clearly loves him, but she is also afraid that he may have actually committed Katie’s murder. 

Matching him beat-for-beat is Sean Penn. He is leaning into his off-screen perception, playing this thuggish ex-convict who still maintains his connections with several toughs willing to do his bidding. His sulks and glowers and generally give off vibes of a man who is barely holding in a level of rage that could get someone killed someday. We will later learn that it is highly likely he did kill someone, a man in his past who ratted him out to the police and got him arrested, though he also sends the widow $500 a month to help out now that her husband is gone. With no body found, though, the family assumes this money is coming from their father, presumably as his idea of child support. 

Jimmy clearly loves Katie a lot and is torn apart by her death. Because of the kind of guy he is, he distrusts the police and has his own guys looking into not only the clues out there but also into whom the police are questioning. This eventually leads him back to Dave, whom Whitey is determined to pin the murder on. Sean doesn’t want to believe it could be his old friend but is struggling against the mounting evidence. 

And with all this mounting evidence, it starts to look dire for Dave. Whether he did it or not, it doesn’t look good for him, especially after Jimmy, himself, starts to believe it was Dave. This film at no point gives us the impression that things are going to turn out well for Dave. We get the occasional glimpse of that little bit of sidewalk with the names carved into it, and it is telling that Dave didn’t get to complete his. This is about a childhood interrupted, and later it will feel like we are witnessing a life interrupted, and not just one, either. 

This is arguably the best film that Clint Eastwood has directed, rivaling Unforgiven and far better than the one he won Best Picture for a few years later. It nails the emotional well-being of the characters, explores the complexities of long-time friendships and marriages, and it portrays the different depths of the kind of love that exists when people spend a long time together. It also looks at how sometimes bad things happen to people for nonsensical reasons. Dave’s kidnapping happened to him because he and his friends just happened to be in front of Jimmy and Sean’s homes. Had they been playing next to his house it could have been one of the other two that got taken instead. Likewise, Katie’s killing, when it is finally revealed, will have a bit of randomness to it, too. 

Marital relationships play a big part in this as well. Sean’s wife calls him often, only to remain silent on her end of the line. They have separated for some reason, but she is reaching out, unable to verbalize her desire to reconcile yet it is clearly a cry out for him. Dave and Celeste are still together, but while she loves him, she also fears him, especially after she begins to suspect he killed Katie. Strangest of all, though, is Jimmy and his second wife. Annabeth knows the kind of man she married and encourages it. She refers to her husband as a king and “a king knows what to do and does it.” This is a dark way to look at the world, but it also closes out Jimmy’s story in just the right way to let us know what kind of marriage this one is. 

This is a moody film that lives and dies by the acting on screen. Clint Eastwood knows this and has cast the main characters almost perfectly. The weakest link is Kevin Bacon, who isn’t really stretching here, playing a variation of whom he is always playing. Sean Penn and Tim Robbins, though, are carrying the show with some incredible support from their co-star, Marcia Gay Harden. Their efforts were rewarded at the Oscars the following year and are the biggest reason to watch this movie. This is not a movie that will make you feel good in the end, but it is one that will move you, nevertheless, and it will stick with you long after those credits start to roll. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Robert Lorenz, Judie G. Hoyt, and Clint Eastwood

Best Director: Clint Eastwood

Best Actor: Sean Penn (won)

Best Supporting Actor: Tim Robbins (won)

Best Supporting Actress: Marcia Gay Harden

Best Adapted Screenplay: Brian Helgeland

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Release Date: October 15, 2003

Running Time: 138 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburn, Marcia Gay Harden, and Laura Linney

Directed by: Clint Eastwood