This question asked by FBI detective Sean Devine(Kevin Bacon) to ex-hoodlum Jimmy Markam(Sean Penn) about ordinary guy Dave Boyle(Tim Robbins) from a physical point of view in the climax, haunts and scars each of the once-upon-a-time childhood buddies emotionally and pshycologically, especially Dave, ever since that fateful day in their lonely neighborhood street in crime infested Little Boston, when as 11 year olds, the three of them playing hockey, engrave their names on the cemented sidewalk as a mark of friends for life, get questioned by two guys and the little boy Dave is forcibly taken away by them in the back of the car as his two friends watch in vain.
Mystic River(2004), by the great actor-director Eastwood, an adaptation of the same best selling novella by Dennis Lehane, is a powerful, explosive and a stirring tale about fate and about all possible human emotions along with the horrors of having an abusive childhood and the consequences of not getting treatment for it.
On that fateful day Dave was picked up by two peadophiles disguised as cops and was molested by them. When he is found and returned back, Dave is left only in physical form. That was last day the three childhood friends were together. Evidently Dave, too small and too afraid and too ashamed to speak out, goes into a shell, keeping the harrowing experience to himself. All of three of them go their seperate ways from then on.
On that day on the the sidewalk Jimmy, Sean engrave their names but Dave's is incomplete and so is their tale. Now fate has decided to bring all three of them back together through a tragedy that has happened to one of them. Ex-con and store owner & local don Jimmy, the hard case of the three, an over possessive father of his nineteen year old daughter, Katie, with his late first wife is worried over her sudden disapperance on the big day of communion of his two little daughters with his second wife. Sean, the smart one of the three, now an FBI detective, and husband to a wife who with their new born baby has left him, gets the case of a murdered young girl who could be Jimmy's daughter. Dave, the quiet one of the three, in same neighborhood as Jimmy and still good friends with him, as usual plays baseball with his young boy, but has had a rough night the day before, as he returned home with blood, cuts and bruises and confessesed to his ultra vulnerable wife that he had fight with a mug and he might have killed him which send jitters to her when she looks in the morning paper but doesn't find news of any mug's body.
Brendan Harris, despised by Jimmy, son of 'Just Ray' Harris, conmate of Jimmy and traitor who had once turned Jimmy over to the cops, loves Jimmy's nineteen year old daughter, unknown to Jimmy, who when getting to know through Sean that her daughter has infact been murdered explodes in an uncontrollable rage. Sean and his partner start the investigation. Jimmy starts his own with his conmates and promises to hunt down and kill her murderer. The first finger of suspicion points to Brendan Harris by the murder weapon, a gun, used by his father during one of his robberies. Also, Sean finds out Dave was present in the bar when Katie and her friends were partying on the night of her murder. On questioning Dave, noticing his bruises and cuts and his wife Celeste, literally on the verge of a breakdown internally fearing the worst, Sean is forced by his partner to make Dave the prime suspect, which Sean isn't quite convinced about.
What follows might be a police procedural on the surface but then the layers keep getting added. Jimmy is the Godfather to Dave's son. When Celeste sees Dave, unusually calm during Katie's funeral she almost freaks out. Dave tells vampire and wolf stories making himself as the prey at bedtime to his son and relives his nightmares in darkness. Finally Celeste listening this confronts him and Dave breaks down in a terrifying outburst recounting his nightmare as a boy and how he hoped and prayed for help while the wolves were having fun with him. Celeste is stunned by this revelation and at that moment feels threatened by Dave.
Owing to his partner's over smartness and trying to jump the gun way ahead, Sean and him lose the plot on Dave as they are tangled in their own plan. Sean now demands his partner to go ahead with Brendan Harris as the prime suspect as they are not left with any choice. Jimmy, grieving incontrollably over his loss on finding out Katie was going to elope with Brendan, curses and blames himself for her death. Jimmy's partners conducting a parallel investigation tell Jimmy the cops had taken Dave in for interrogation. Celeste having nowhere to go, now and forced by her uncontrollable urge to confess, tells Jimmy she might left Dave for good and also tells the inevitable which drives Jimmy insane.
Now the cops are on Brendan Harris's trail and Jimmy and his partners are on Dave's resulting in a stunning climax of revelations of startling nature not so much about who the killer is but about about friendship, loyalty, brotherhood, guilt, power on the banks of the Mystic river in Boston. Here Sean asks Jimmy the question to which Jimmy recounts their terrible childhood incident and says now how he hoped he was the one to be taken away not Dave so that Katie would never have been born and she would never have been murdered.
Even on finding the killer there is no victory for anyone in the end. It is not so simple. Life just moves on. The killer is revealed not like a suspense trick precisely because this is not a suspense movie. It is about how twisted our decisions can be in the worst of circumstances. The movie is explosive not because of some high octane stuff but of simmering tension lying undercurrent almost from the first frame. It is really unsettling.
What makes this movie work not the screenplay, which is quite good, but the pitch perfect direction of Eastwood and the remarkable acting by his team. Eastwood, himself, having played numerous characters who don't say much, knows the power of silence, restraint and understatement, expertly allows his actors to do just that wihout ever going over the top. There is lot of grief, pain and anger in the characters but none of it involves constant shouting and crying. Most of it stirs inside them with occasional outbursts. All the actors breathe their characters because they are allowed to do if I may say so. The three best performances would be Sean Penn, as Jimmy, ruthless hard boiled ex-con on the outside, but with a soft core like a family man, superbly shows the guilt for being responsible for his daughter's death. Marcia Gay Hayden, as the anxiety prone, tense Celeste, who loves her husband Dave, but doesn't show unflinching loyalty towards him as a normal wife would do. Finally Tim Robbins as Dave, carrying the baggage of an abusive childhood, brings alive Dave and his horrors. He reminds us of missing out on youth. It is a reminder that victims of such terrible acts must be treated by counselling immediately even if they don't want to. The rest of the cast round it off superbly.
Mystic River shows us the best and worst in humans.
Till next time - movies, movies and movies...
Mystic River(2004), by the great actor-director Eastwood, an adaptation of the same best selling novella by Dennis Lehane, is a powerful, explosive and a stirring tale about fate and about all possible human emotions along with the horrors of having an abusive childhood and the consequences of not getting treatment for it.
On that fateful day Dave was picked up by two peadophiles disguised as cops and was molested by them. When he is found and returned back, Dave is left only in physical form. That was last day the three childhood friends were together. Evidently Dave, too small and too afraid and too ashamed to speak out, goes into a shell, keeping the harrowing experience to himself. All of three of them go their seperate ways from then on.
On that day on the the sidewalk Jimmy, Sean engrave their names but Dave's is incomplete and so is their tale. Now fate has decided to bring all three of them back together through a tragedy that has happened to one of them. Ex-con and store owner & local don Jimmy, the hard case of the three, an over possessive father of his nineteen year old daughter, Katie, with his late first wife is worried over her sudden disapperance on the big day of communion of his two little daughters with his second wife. Sean, the smart one of the three, now an FBI detective, and husband to a wife who with their new born baby has left him, gets the case of a murdered young girl who could be Jimmy's daughter. Dave, the quiet one of the three, in same neighborhood as Jimmy and still good friends with him, as usual plays baseball with his young boy, but has had a rough night the day before, as he returned home with blood, cuts and bruises and confessesed to his ultra vulnerable wife that he had fight with a mug and he might have killed him which send jitters to her when she looks in the morning paper but doesn't find news of any mug's body.
Brendan Harris, despised by Jimmy, son of 'Just Ray' Harris, conmate of Jimmy and traitor who had once turned Jimmy over to the cops, loves Jimmy's nineteen year old daughter, unknown to Jimmy, who when getting to know through Sean that her daughter has infact been murdered explodes in an uncontrollable rage. Sean and his partner start the investigation. Jimmy starts his own with his conmates and promises to hunt down and kill her murderer. The first finger of suspicion points to Brendan Harris by the murder weapon, a gun, used by his father during one of his robberies. Also, Sean finds out Dave was present in the bar when Katie and her friends were partying on the night of her murder. On questioning Dave, noticing his bruises and cuts and his wife Celeste, literally on the verge of a breakdown internally fearing the worst, Sean is forced by his partner to make Dave the prime suspect, which Sean isn't quite convinced about.
What follows might be a police procedural on the surface but then the layers keep getting added. Jimmy is the Godfather to Dave's son. When Celeste sees Dave, unusually calm during Katie's funeral she almost freaks out. Dave tells vampire and wolf stories making himself as the prey at bedtime to his son and relives his nightmares in darkness. Finally Celeste listening this confronts him and Dave breaks down in a terrifying outburst recounting his nightmare as a boy and how he hoped and prayed for help while the wolves were having fun with him. Celeste is stunned by this revelation and at that moment feels threatened by Dave.
Owing to his partner's over smartness and trying to jump the gun way ahead, Sean and him lose the plot on Dave as they are tangled in their own plan. Sean now demands his partner to go ahead with Brendan Harris as the prime suspect as they are not left with any choice. Jimmy, grieving incontrollably over his loss on finding out Katie was going to elope with Brendan, curses and blames himself for her death. Jimmy's partners conducting a parallel investigation tell Jimmy the cops had taken Dave in for interrogation. Celeste having nowhere to go, now and forced by her uncontrollable urge to confess, tells Jimmy she might left Dave for good and also tells the inevitable which drives Jimmy insane.
Now the cops are on Brendan Harris's trail and Jimmy and his partners are on Dave's resulting in a stunning climax of revelations of startling nature not so much about who the killer is but about about friendship, loyalty, brotherhood, guilt, power on the banks of the Mystic river in Boston. Here Sean asks Jimmy the question to which Jimmy recounts their terrible childhood incident and says now how he hoped he was the one to be taken away not Dave so that Katie would never have been born and she would never have been murdered.
Even on finding the killer there is no victory for anyone in the end. It is not so simple. Life just moves on. The killer is revealed not like a suspense trick precisely because this is not a suspense movie. It is about how twisted our decisions can be in the worst of circumstances. The movie is explosive not because of some high octane stuff but of simmering tension lying undercurrent almost from the first frame. It is really unsettling.
What makes this movie work not the screenplay, which is quite good, but the pitch perfect direction of Eastwood and the remarkable acting by his team. Eastwood, himself, having played numerous characters who don't say much, knows the power of silence, restraint and understatement, expertly allows his actors to do just that wihout ever going over the top. There is lot of grief, pain and anger in the characters but none of it involves constant shouting and crying. Most of it stirs inside them with occasional outbursts. All the actors breathe their characters because they are allowed to do if I may say so. The three best performances would be Sean Penn, as Jimmy, ruthless hard boiled ex-con on the outside, but with a soft core like a family man, superbly shows the guilt for being responsible for his daughter's death. Marcia Gay Hayden, as the anxiety prone, tense Celeste, who loves her husband Dave, but doesn't show unflinching loyalty towards him as a normal wife would do. Finally Tim Robbins as Dave, carrying the baggage of an abusive childhood, brings alive Dave and his horrors. He reminds us of missing out on youth. It is a reminder that victims of such terrible acts must be treated by counselling immediately even if they don't want to. The rest of the cast round it off superbly.
Mystic River shows us the best and worst in humans.
Till next time - movies, movies and movies...
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