Dir. Clint Eastwood, 2003, US, 137 mins
Cast: Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Tim Robbins, Laurence Fishburne, Laura Linney
Three boys are playing in the dirty streets of a rundown suburb just outside Boston. A car stops and a menacing stranger steps out. There is a short exchange, a barked order. In a matter of minutes a young child is taken away and subjected to four days of captivity and sexual abuse. When he manages to escape, the lives of all three boys have been changed forever.
Years later, these former friends are forced to confront this dark past when they are brought together by another crime. The oldest daughter of one of the three, Jimmy (Sean Penn), is horribly murdered. The second, Sean (Kevin Bacon), is the detective leading the investigation. And the third, Dave (Tim Robbins), emerges as the chief suspect.
Given that crime against children is such a major talking point in current times, this contemporary crime thriller is likely to provoke strong reactions from audiences. Critics of violence in mainstream cinema will point to a short but disturbing sequence involving two violent confrontations - one between children, the other between adults. The manner in which these two confrontations are filmed, with constant cutting backwards and forwards between them, seems to imply that violence is a human trait regardless of the ages of the perpetrators. It is an uncomfortable conclusion, if not an untruthful one.
More problematic from a cinematic point of view is what the film is really trying to say about violence against, and by, children. Mystic River is based on a book by Dennis Lehane which combines a complex detective story with a psychological study of human relationships. As a novel, this ambitious combination may well succeed. However, in the more restricted time and space allowed by the cinema, key elements of the story are lost. Brian Helgeland's adapted screenplay squeezes important subplots (such as Sean's estrangement from his wife) into little more than vignettes and is unable to fill in the gaps between the two crimes. There is an underlying assumption throughout the picture that the childhood abduction has had a profound effect on the various characters in the story. But it is not entirely clear what that effect is.
Given that Mystic River relies heavily on dialogue to drive the story forwards, the powerful use of close-up and silhouette by director Clint Eastwood and his cinematographer, Tom Stern, constitutes one of the film's strongest assets. Another is the acting, which is uniformly brilliant. Robbins does arguably the finest work of his career as the slow, shambling Dave; Penn is not far behind as the sullen, short-tempered Jimmy; Marcia Gay Harden is utterly convincing as Dave's emotionally torn wife. It would not be surprising to see all three included when the Academy Award nominations are announced in February. Bacon, Laurence Fishburne (a typically forceful performance as Sean's partner) and Laura Linney (as Jimmy's loyal wife) complete an impressive cast.
This is by no means Eastwood's worst work since his award-winning Unforgiven, but it certainly is not his best. As the closing credits rolled up over the backdrop of the river that gives this film its title, I felt a sense of frustration. Mystic River seems to fall short of saying what it could do and ends up raising more questions than it answers.
Justin Whitton
|
