emotional, terrifying

Rating: 9/10 (15 August 2004)

After reading the book Mystic River, I was left with a complete sense of despair and hopelessness. So excruciating were the events of these families lives that I found myself crying, depressed, and aching physically with the pain of what was done to them and what they did to each other. I almost couldn't bring myself to watch the film. Though I adore Tim Robbins and Sean Penn, and I knew that their performances would be stellar (which they were, of course), it had taken me so long to recover from the book, that I was afraid that actually seeing the gruesome events would be too much. It was. These extraordinary actors brought vividly to life the traumas that make this story so moving, so haunting, and so unforgettable.