Haunting.

Rating: 5/10 (2 September 2013)

Clint Eastwood sure knows a lot about movies. Even though he doesn't make 'em like we'd expect from all those tough guy movies he had been in in the 1970s. May it be "Million Dollar Baby" or "Gran Torino", his obsession with tragedy almost rivals his obsession with emotions. That's precisely what you get in "Mystic River", a straight-up Eastwood masterwork that boasts of deep cinematic passion and incredible storytelling. Aided by a cast for the ages, "Mystic River" is a poignant beast of a crime-drama that's both spellbinding and moving.
The film opens in an isolated neighborhood in Boston where three boys, Jimmy, Sean and Dave, play hockey. After losing their ball down the drain, they decide to inscribe their names on a piece of wet cement. When they do so, two men get down from a car and chastise them for damaging municipal property. Thinking they might be police officers, Dave gets into their car when the two angrily insist while Jimmy and Sean are left helplessly watching him go. Dave gets sexually abused by the two men for four days until he escapes.
Many years later, the three of them have grown apart and have married. Jimmy (Sean Penn), an ex-con, runs a convenience store at the end of the street. He's helped by his nineteen-year old daughter Katie (Emmy Rossum). Katie's secretly dating Brendan (Tom Guiry), a boy Jimmy despises. The two make plans to elope to Las Vegas but Katie gets murdered the night before.
Dave (Tim Robbins), now married and having a son, is still haunted by his predicament. A quiet character, he's in the middle of an unhappy marriage. When he returns home with blood on his shirt on the night of Katie's murder, his wife Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden) questions him about it. When he tells her a story of having fought off and possibly killed a mugger, she doesn't believe him. The news of the murder leaks out and she suspects him of having killed Katie.
Sean (Kevin Bacon) is divorced from his wife and is now a police detective. He's handed the case of Katie's murder but tries his best not to let his relationships with the people involved in it get in his way.
Unlike most of Eastwood's movies, "Mystic River" doesn't beat about the bush and plunges straight into the action. Acutely observed from the very first frame, the first sequence is deeply unsettling. Set mostly in an Irish neighborhood, Eastwood effectively creates a moody, suspenseful atmosphere when the two men delude the gullible boys. And that atmosphere persists throughout the movie. Because it's about the characters more than it's about the plot, a considerable amount of time is devoted to richly detail the life that goes on for the three protagonists. Screenwriter Brian Helgeland writes solicitously, etching out the characters so wonderfully that you get enough time socialize with them. Though a lot goes on in "Mystic River", it's a rather quiet examination of guilt and redemption and the drama that unfolds when the circumstances play their part in the lives of the characters. Eastwood crucially chooses pragmatism over drama, which is a relief considering that's not the case with most movies that we get to see now.
One of the cavils I have with this beauty of a movie is that it's slow in its revelations. Most of the time I found myself guessing correctly what's about to transpire but the characters seemed too poky to keep up. Though the suspense was ultimately well-crafted, I would've preferred to be kept guessing till the very end.
"Mystic River" largely benefits from the magnificent performances which the whole cast uniformly delivers. Penn is cogent, radiating his tremendous potential as an actor through the livid Jimmy. Robbins is fantastic, playing a quiet, hurting father, you can't help but be sympathetic for his plight. Harden, in a brief role, hands in a nuanced, sensitive performance as a wife torn between her husband and a need for justice. Bacon does a pretty good job of turning Sean into a forceful personality that strangely gives you a lot of hope. In a film that's about guilt, Sean's the only symbol of hope.
"Mystic River" may be Eastwood's best work. It's a supremely well-directed, commiserative, observant drama that's completely bereft of film tricks. Here's a movie made with feeling that relies solely on its material to tell a good story. It's a riveting film that engages you and then smothers you with its power. Terrific.