Riveting film about real people in a real town

Rating: 8/10 (1 June 2005)

Contrary to the opinions of some other viewers, I found Mystic River an absolutely riveting film. The storytelling, the acting, the writing, and the cinematography were all superb, and the director and writer made excellent use of some of the finest actors working today.
I avoided this movie in theaters because the subject matter seemed to be so heavy and serious: child abduction, molestation, murder, and revenge. But in fact, it is a movie with an ultimately hopeful and redemptive ending, and puts a human face on the kinds of people we are prone to pass every day without giving a second glance.
As someone who moved to Boston in the late 1990s and experienced first-hand the rise of real estate costs and the slow process of gentrification, I find the characterization of the insular community of Charlestown, a working-class, white, Irish town just north of Boston, to be dead-on. Townies themselves may or may not agree with me, but I believe that ultimately the film is about survival and family cohesion within the sometimes hostile world of a big city.
Sean Penn's acting in this movie was spot-on: he has the uncanny ability to evoke barely suppressed rage without actually spilling over into melodrama. Tim Roberts, as the grown version of Davy, who was abducted and raped as a young boy, does an admirable job evoking the kind of shell-shocked, medicated affect of a damaged soul who has never truly healed. Kevin Bacon and Laurence Fishburn also perform excellent roles, as does Marcia Gay Hardin as the wife of the grown Davy, who suspects that her husband may have committed a murder and doesn't know who to tell.