The tragedy within the tragedy of life might be its total randomness

Rating: 9/10 (6 March 2017)

Who said "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger"? Indeed, life is all about taking hits, but if often happens that the hits hurt less than the idea that we could have easily avoided some of them. A man crippled by a road accident might not blame his driving but what caused him to drive that very day. This 'thinking' can cripple a soul even worse than a body. "Mystic River", Clint Eastwood's minimalist masterpiece, is a harrowing odyssey over the lives of tortured souls affected directly or indirectly by tragedy and the cruel arbitrariness of life.
The movie opens in blue-collar Boston quarters. Three kids: Dave, Sean and Jimmy are playing hockey on the road and sign their names in wet cement. Two men posing as cops approach them, they take Dave in the car, supposedly to send him to his parents and teach him a lesson. Whatever happens to Dave after and however it derailed the trajectory of his life is ominously suggested by the unfinished name in the cement. Sean and Jimmy were so close to their neighborhood that the two sexual predators didn't take any chances with them, but a piece of their soul went with Dave in that car, and the adults they'll turn out to be won't emerge totally unscathed from that 'incident'.
"Mystic River" was adapted by Brian Helgeland from a novel by Dennis Lehane and the beauty in the screenplay lies in the way it doesn't fool us by offering answers, men's actions can be as irrational as life itself, but it allows us to grasp why sane people can act in irrational ways, making mistakes out of misguided instinct, past experiences or even love. Clint Eastwood is too much of a no-nonsense director to make a philosophical statement, we make the conclusions for ourselves and appreciate the film for what it is: a harrowing and poignant human drama, served by tremendous acting. Indeed, this is one of these films where the notion of acting ensemble isn't just some awards pundit's darling, even the most unnoticeable character can give you a taste of his life.
And the taste never feels as authentic as when Sean Penn and Tim Robbins are in or share the screen, as adult Jimmy and Dave, they are the yin and the yang of "Mystic River", one has a heart so fueled in anger that it's like a ticking bomb waiting anytime to explode, and his friend carries such a heavy burden that it seems to push him down inside himself. Both actors are equally outstanding in performances that would be considered rather routine. Robbins' uncommunicative behavior speak a thousand words, while Penn well, I've seen scenes of parents learning about the death of their children, but a few has struck me like Penn shouting "is there my daughter there?" and then simply surrendering to the madness of desperation and shouting. Some would call it over-the-top, it is not, rather over the edge, and when driven to that corner, there's no standard of behavior.
The acting and the intensity of the drama make up for the gloomy banality of the location. And there's that hometown flavor, that authenticity conveyed by the story. Penn and Robbins also play married men with children, which is not just some dimension-adding plot device, it means that their character act like men, but also husbands and children, and as pivotal as the Oscar-winning performances of Penn and Robbins were, the wealth is spread to Marcia Gay Harden who plays Dave's wife and Laura Linney playing Jimmy's. "Mystic River" isn't just about a murder and the police investigation but the ensuing effect on families, about betrayal and loyalty, certitudes and suspicions following the murder of Jimmy's daughter Katie (Emmy Rossum). The procedural seems like "good cop/ bad cop" routine but even that aspect is handled by Eastwood like state-of-art filmmaking.
The investigation is conducted by officers Whitey (Lawrence Fishburne) and Sean (Kevin Bacon). I only mention now the third acting force of the film, because Bacon doesn't play on the same emotional level than his two former friends. He also got his deal of marital troubles, but he tries not to let his past interfere with his judgment. Whitey finds there's something suspicious with Dave who saw Katie shortly before the murder and came back home with a bloody injury on his hand causing his wife, not only to be afraid, but to act afraid, publicly. Dave has a saying about the blood but the absence of proofs, his muddy talking and strange fascination for vampires accentuates his creepiness and slowly turns him into number one suspect.
"Mystic River" is about people's lives intertwining within a tragedy of the present but while the past is sneakily resurfacing, causing an unfortunate streak of actions moved by tragic betrayals and ill-advised loyalty, crazy actions that only make sense within the realm of the opening incident. We're never totally clean, whatever that means. It is very revealing that while dealing with the grief of losing a daughter, Jimmy, who's been a former convict, recalls the childhood episode and the effects it could have had by harming his self-confidence (had he been in that car). Instead, he grew up strong enough to marry a beautiful woman and have Katie and then, Katie was killed. There's a fine line between life questioning and intellectual masturbation. And assuming that Katie turned Jimmy into a better man wouldn't amount much in the scale of the actions he committed out of this very love.
"Mystic River" doesn't call for analysis, it is as random as life itself, this is human drama at its rawest and most powerful intensity, directed by Clint Eastwood without any fancy storytelling, it is just things happening to people and people reacting to them. It might be random but it is possible (or is it certitude?) that the tragedy within the tragedy of life is its total randomness