Mystic River

B+

It's rare that we find a movie driven solely their characters. Of course, there are biopics, but even then, only few biopics could drive its story through the strength of its characters so well. But Mystic River is not a biopic, and yet with a superb script and a take-your-pick selection of powerhouse performances, it's a movie that combusts on its characters alone. In fact, one could argue that Mystic River is at its weakest, comparatively, when it focuses on plot.

Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn), Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon) and Dave Boyle are childhood friends whose lives diverged 25 years ago, when they vandalised a sidewalk and were reprimanded by "a man with a badge". Dave was the only one taken, molested, until he ran away from his abducters 4 days later. It's a single incident that changed their lives. So one night, in the present day, Dave come home to his wife, Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden), with blood all over him, claiming he was mugged. The next morning, the body of Jimmy's 19-year-old daughter, Katie (Emmy Rossum) is found, beaten and shot. Sean is the detective that is in charge of the case with his partner (Lawrence Fishburn).

From then on, the characters are allowed to breathe and move their own stories. Each one had his/her own story, feelings and thoughts, and interactions among them move the story forward, inch by inch, with a grim aura persistently hanging over them. Jimmy has connections with the muscles in the area, and he vows revenge. Dave, obviously still dealing with childhood traumas, might or might not have been the killer; though Celeste grows in fear that her husband probably is. Sean too suspects Dave; but evidence point to Katie's loving boyfriend, Brendan Harris (Thomas Guiry). At first glance, Sean seems the most stable of the trio, but in the end he admits to have been affected deeply too by Dave's kidnapping, and it might have been the reason he became a cop; and now he's determined to solve the case before Jimmy takes matters into his own hands.

If a movie is a flat board, the characters in Mystic River are like sharp needles, shooting upwards. The biggest of these are Jimmy, Dave and Sean, and they prick you deep, even from the start. We sympathise with each character from the very beginning, and as the movie progresses fear for their safety, from one another. It's a masterful script that could grasp the viewers' attention without revealing too much. Its depiction of many themes, such as tragedy, grief, paranoia feel very real.

All performances in this movie are terrific, bar one. Sean Penn fuses the screen with intensity, even in low-key moments. He won a well-deserved oscar for this role. Matching him scene by scene is Tim Robbins as the tragic Dave Doyle; using subtle nuances to show the leftover traumas that still haunt over Dave, but still makes us believe that Dave is a good person. It's often hard to bear a scene when Jimmy and Dave are together, since we empathise with Jimmy's loss and we fear for ourselves that Dave might be the killer. Marcia Gay Harden is so convincing as Dave's tortured wife that it's easy to take her performance, so complex but seemingly effortless, for granted. The fact is Celeste could have been over-the-top or irksome, but the thought never entered my mind while wactching the movie. Kevin Bacon is solid as Sean Devine, though he's not given as much to work on as his other co-stars. The weak performance is turned in by Laura Linney as Jimmy's wife. While she could have been strong, if not selfish, she comes across as conniving and repulsive. But seeing how solid the script has been, it's possible that most of Linney's performance were left in the cutting room, hence the character might seem thinner than the rest.

And that too goes for other aspects of the movie: most things are so good that its bad parts stuck out like a sore thumb. There are a few missteps, I believe, arguably the most detrimental was when the movie shifted into a detective murder-mystery. About an hour into the running length, we follow the murder weapon, apparently used in a robbery in 1983. In the end, the story lines sort of converge, but the shift in tone and pace was noticable, if not distracting.

So maybe Mystic River isn't a perfect movie, but it's an exemplary one. It's human drama, raw, emotional and deeply affecting. With a superb script, and a director that knows how to utilise it, Mystic River gives one hell of a cinematic experience.
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