The Best Film of 2003

Rating: 10/10 (24 February 2004)

"Mystic River" is one of those magical cinematic moments--such as "The Godfather" or "Casablanca"--where story, screenplay, director and actors combine to make a film that is truly perfect. Clint Eastwood's direction has never been better, and Oscar nominees Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Marcia Gay Harden all turn in the finest performances of their respective careers.
The story begins in 1976, when three 12-year-old boys--Jimmy, Sean and Dave--are writing their names in wet concrete when a middle-aged man flashing an official-looking badge steps out of an official-looking Ford LTD and tells the kids to stop. The man learns that Jimmy & Sean live on the block, but Dave doesn't, so he tells Dave to get into the car and he will drive Dave home. Only the man doesn't drive Dave home because the man is not really a cop. He is a pedophile who--along with his partner--keeps Dave locked in a basement for four days while they have their way with him. On the fourth day, Dave escapes.
The story flashes forward to 2001. The boys are now 37.
Jimmy (Penn) is now an ex-con (the extent of his criminality is not revealed until the end of the film) who runs a convenience store. He has three daughters: two by his current wife Anabeth (Laura Linney), and 19-year-old Katie (Emmy Rossum) by his dead first wife. Jimmy makes no secret that Katie is the favorite daughter.
Sean (Kevin Bacon) is a homicide detective with the Massachusetts State Police whose wife (who does not appear until the end of the film) has left him and moved to New York, where she has given birth to Sean's baby, who he has never seen.
Dave (Robbins) has grown into a deeply damaged adult who walks around the neighborhood, staring into space and talking to himself. He is married to Jimmy's cousin Celeste (Harden), and they have an 8-year-old son Michael (Cayden Boyd).
The trouble begins when Dave comes home and Celeste finds him covered in blood & refusing to go to the hospital. The next day she learns that Katie has been murdered. Sean and his partner Whitey Powers (Laurence Fishburne) are called to investigate. And Jimmy--not content to let the police handle the case--asks his ex-partners in crime, the symbolically named Savage brothers (Kevin Chapman and Adam Nelson), to find Katie's murderer so Jimmy can kill him.
What I really like is that--unlike the usual murder mystery--the focus is not on the investigation. The few scenes concerning the police work are pretty much cribbed from "Law & Order". Eastwood is more concerned about how such a thing affects the victim's loved ones. In particular, the focus is on Jimmy--and to a lesser extent, his relationship with Dave.
A few words must be said here about Sean Penn's performance. About once a decade a truly magnificent performance is filmed that changes the art of acting forever. In the '40's it was Humphrey Bogart in "Casablanca". In the '50's it was Marlon Brando in "A Streetcar Named Desire". In the '60's it was Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate". In the '70's it was Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver". In the '90's it was Anthony Hopkins in "The Silence of the Lambs". And for this decade it is Sean Penn in "Mystic River". Jimmy is at turns overwrought, depressed, surly, outraged, and finally just plain scary. But Penn--even at his least subtle--never hits a wrong note. His performance is the best thing about a nearly perfect movie.
There might be a few quibbles here and there. As I said, the scenes of police work seem merely routine; and Penn and Robbins both look a good deal older than 37. But those pale in comparison to the film's strengths. I liked the device of Dave being victimized each time he rides in the back of a car. And the dialog written for Dave and the other character's dialog about Dave is almost poetic. And Eastwood's sure hand as a director--particularly his expressionistic use of people in shadow rather than full light--show that, contrary to reviews of his work of the last 5 or 6 years, his talent has not dried up by a long shot.
"Mystic River" is up for multiple Oscars this year and it deserves nearly all of them. A truly great movie anchored by the greatest performance ever given by Sean Penn--already the greatest male actor of his generation. 10/10