A really great movie, but...(some spoilers, but not much)

Rating: Null/10 (24 November 2003)

I thought this was a very good movie. The story develops very slowly and therefore leaves space for the characters to develop. You could say that Mystic River is a who-done-it movie, but I think it's just much more than that. It's a story about three old friends, Jimmy, Dave and Sean who meet each other again after being separated for years, because of very tragic circumstances. Jimmy's daughter is missing and after a while she is found death, murdered. Sean, the policeman, has to solve this mystery and Dave is the main suspect. But something else is going on, something that happened to them in the past and is the reason why they were separated as friends in the first place. Dave became the biggest victum of that past incident, but what happened then, still has a big influence on the present life's of all three of them.
The story is moving very slowly as I was saying before, but in a time of fast and action-packed blockbusters I realy could appreciate that. It's just something different for a change. The acting is superb, especially that of the three leads. What can I say. Sean Penn, I just love the guy, but also Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins were wonderful. There is this scene between Dave (Tim Robbins) and his wife which gave me goose-flesh all over.

So far, so good. So what's up with the "but...". Well, the following... I loved this movie until a few minutes before the ending. You see, Jimmy, makes a mistake. A big mistake. Something he just can't change any more, and he just can't do anything to make up for it. One thing is for sure though. This mistake is going to make him feel guilty for the rest of his life. Jimmy feels the guilt, but there is no time to go deeper into that. His wife makes some excuse for the thing he has done and also Sean "tells" him that he knows and forgives him. And this is where the movie ends. So his wife and friend forgive, but how will it end for Jimmy? Will he ever be able to life with the guilt? When I walked out of the cinema I still had the feeling that the movie had ended to soon (although it's very long) and that Mr. Eastwood should have done something (what, I'm not sure) with Jimmy's guilt.

Still, although the ending was a bit disappointing for me, I still think this is a very good movie. Something really word watching.