The Year 2003: Mystic River (Clint Eastwood)

Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, the cast of Clint Eastwood's Mystic River reads like a who's who of the acting alumni; Penn, Robbins (both of whom went on to win Academy Awards for their roles), Bacon, Fishburne, Harden and Linney all pad out this mysterious drama as three childhood friends are reunited after a brutal murder takes place. Critically acclaimed, lauded at festivals around the world and lapped up by audiences, Mystic River ranks alongside Eastwood's greatest work. Taking us through this wrenching character study, Counting Down The Zeroes welcomes back J.D from the excellent Radiator Heaven, please check out his current, marvellous Michael Mann retrospective, who praises Eastwood's 'considerable constraint' and a film 'about how a single, pivotal event in one person's life can affect not just them but their friends and family for the rest of their lives.'

Clint Eastwood has never been afraid to explore the darker side of humanity, both as an actor and more significantly as a director. In his directorial debut, Play Misty for Me (1971), he dealt with stalking years before Fatal Attraction (1987), Bird (1988) examined legendary musician Charlie Parker struggling with the depths of drug addiction, and Unforgiven (1992) examined the horrible effects of violence, both physically and emotionally. Mystic River (2003) may be Eastwood’s most harrowing exploration of the darkest aspects of humanity. On the surface, the film is a murder mystery but it also deals with the issue of child abuse and explores the themes of violence and revenge in Eastwood’s typically understated way.

When they were kids, Jimmy, Sean and Dave grew up in a working class Irish Catholic neighborhood in Boston. One day, while they were playing in the street, Dave was taken away by two men posing as policemen. They kidnap him and physically and emotionally abuse him over several days. Dave manages to escape but the incident changed the lives of all three boys. They are now adults and no longer close friends. Jimmy (Sean Penn) is a reformed criminal who now runs an honest business. Sean (Kevin Bacon) is a police detective who is currently separated from his wife. Dave (Tim Robbins) is a soft-spoken, quiet man with emotional scars that run deep.

After Jimmy’s 19-year old daughter (Emmy Rossum) is brutally murdered, Dave becomes a suspect. He was one of the last people to see her alive that night, his alibi is shaky at best and he’s evasive about what he was up to around the time she was murdered. Jimmy is devastated and slips effortlessly back into hardened criminal mode; determined to find out who did it and exact swift retribution. Sean and his partner, Whitey (Laurence Fishburne) investigate the murder and this not only reunites the three childhood friends after all these years but also re-opens old wounds.

Tim Robbins conveys a real haunted quality with his portrayal of Dave. It is obvious that something is not right with him and the actor expresses the anguish that his character has been carrying around all these years. Robbins does an excellent job of communicating the inner turmoil that exists in Dave and how it manifests itself on the surface. There is a quiet, yet unsettling intensity that Robbins brings to the role. In his mind, Dave is still that little boy running through the woods, trying to escape from his captors.

Sean Penn has the flashiest, meatiest role in the film as the distraught father. It’s a very physical performance reminiscent of early Marlon Brando. The scene where he finds out that his daughter has been killed is an explosion of emotion as Penn screams and rages like a wounded animal. Penn digs deep within himself and exposes a raw nerve that makes it such an intense scene to watch. Afterwards, Penn spends the rest of the film pacing much like a caged animal that is waiting to be unleashed as he plots his revenge — it is the very essence of machismo much like Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) or On the Waterfront (1954).

Kevin Bacon has perhaps the toughest role in that his is the least flashiest but also one of the most important. He tells Jimmy that his daughter is dead and also suspects that Dave might be the killer — two things that have significant ramifications later on in the film. Bacon does a good job in also showing us a glimpse of Sean’s personal life. His wife has left for some unknown reason and she calls him occasionally but says nothing, which frustrates him to no end.

The wild cards in Mystic River are the women who, for most of the film, remain in the background, whether it is Sean’s absent wife or Jimmy’s supportive wife, the icy Annabeth (Laura Linney) or Dave’s timid spouse Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden). And yet, by the end of the film, they end up playing pivotal roles in the lives of their significant others with Linney revealing herself to be a mama lion that ferociously protects her family in a powerful scene between her and Harden, and Harden who ends up betraying Dave in a way that has earth-shattering repercussions.

Eastwood shows considerable restraint in his direction which is also understated with minimal, invisible editing. For example, early he sets a tense, uneasy tone when Dave, Jimmy and Sean as kids are confronted by who they assume is a plainclothes police officer chastising them for writing their names in fresh cement. He takes Dave with him in his car and it’s a scary moment because the boy is obviously afraid and we don’t know what is going to happen to him except that it’s not going to be good. There is a shot of the frightened boy looking out the back window of the car at his friends that is absolutely heartbreaking. This straightforward approach allows the actors to do their thing and gives the screenplay, written by Brian Helgeland (adapted from Dennis Lehane’s best-selling novel of the same name), room to breathe. There is not a pronounced colour palette in the film; instead Eastwood explores the relationship between shadows and light. The direction is unobtrusive as it should be for a solemn, character-driven piece like this one. It’s old school, Hollywood filmmaking that you don’t see much of anymore.

The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, “To see strong acting like this is exhilarating. In a time of flashy directors who slice and dice their films in a dizzy editing rhythm, it is important to remember that films can look and listen and attentively sympathize with their characters.” In his review for The New York Times, A.O. Scott praised Penn’s performance: “Mr. Penn, his eyes darting as if in anticipation of another blow, his shoulders tensed to return it, is almost beyond praise. Jimmy Markum is not only one of the best performances of the year, but also one of the definitive pieces of screen acting in the last half-century, the culmination of a realist tradition that began in the old Actor's Studio and begat Brando, Dean, Pacino and De Niro.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film an “A” rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum praised Robbins’ performance: “Robbins, in one of the great, hunkered-down performances of his career, bears Dave's crushing load of memory on beautifully sagging shoulders, framed by the camera in middle-distance shots that rarely allow Dave space or privacy.” In his review for the Village Voice, J. Hoberman wrote, “Darker in its way than even Unforgiven, Mystic River actually ends with a festive patriotic parade casting a horrifying shadow of criminality on the entire procedure.” The New York Observer’s Andrew Sarris wrote, “Mr. Eastwood is to be commended for reportedly insisting that the film be shot in its natural Boston habitat rather than in a cheaper approximation of Boston, such as bargain-basement Toronto. This emphasis on geographical authenticity helps make this film a masterpiece of the first order.” Jonathan Rosenbaum, of the Chicago Reader, was one of the rare dissenting voices as he criticized the film’s depiction of women: “Also dismaying are Eastwood's two-dimensional depictions of Celeste and Annabeth and his one-dimensional depiction of Sean's wife – whom we don't see and who scarcely exists on any level except as a thematic and structural prop ... She's there simply to provide some narrative symmetry and the basis for a redemptive, if highly qualified, happy ending.”

Mystic River is a thoughtful meditation on violence and its de-humanizing effects. It is about how a single, pivotal event in one person’s life can affect not just them but their friends and family for the rest of their lives. It all goes back to that fateful day when Dave got into that car. What would have happened if Jimmy or Sean had gone instead? How would their lives be different? The film doesn’t offer any easy answers; instead leaving it up to the audience to figure it out themselves.