Taglines: We bury our sins, we wash them clean.
Mystic River movie storyline. In the summer of 1975 in a neighborhood in Boston, 3 kids, Dave Boyle and two of his friends, Jimmy and Sean, are playing on the sidewalk when Dave gets abducted by two men and endures several days of sexual abuse. Eventually, Dave escapes traumatized throughout adulthood. Jimmy is an ex-con and a father of three, whose daughter Katie, is found dead and Dave becomes the number one suspect.
Sean is a homicide detective, investigating Katie’s murder, ends up finding himself faced with past and present demons as more is uncovered about Katie’s murder. Learning Katie had a boyfriend, ballistics later turn up a gun belonging to the father, which then puts her boyfriend as the suspect. Will Sean find out who killed Katie? Will Jimmy make it through the investigation? And will Dave ever find out what really happened when he was abducted?
Mystic River is a 2003 American mystery crime drama film directed and scored by Clint Eastwood. It stars Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, and Laura Linney. The screenplay by Brian Helgeland was based on the novel Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. The film was produced by Robert Lorenz, Judie G. Hoyt and Eastwood. It is the first film on which Eastwood was credited as composer of the score.
The film opened to widespread critical acclaim. It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor. Sean Penn won Best Actor and Tim Robbins won Best Supporting Actor, making Mystic River the first film to win both awards since Ben-Hur in 1959.
Film Review for Mystic River
When they were kids growing up together in a rough section of Boston, Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn), Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins) and Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon) spent their days playing stickball on the street, the way most boys did in their blue-collar neighborhood of East Buckingham. Nothing much out of the ordinary ever happened, until a moment’s decision drastically altered the course of each of their lives forever.
Twenty-five years later, the three find themselves thrust back together by another tragic event – the murder of Jimmy’s 19-year-old daughter (Emmy Rossum). Now a cop, Sean is assigned to the case and he and his partner (Laurence Fishburne) are charged with unraveling the seemingly senseless crime. In the wake of the sudden and terrible loss of his child, Jimmy’s mind becomes consumed with revenge – and his own plans to find the killer.
Caught up in the maelstrom is Dave, now a lost and broken man fighting to keep his demons at bay. As the investigation creeps closer to home, his wife Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden) becomes consumed by suspicion and fear, while Jimmy’s wife Annabeth (Laura Linney) draws her family tighter together in order to weather the storm. A taut, multi-layered drama, Mystic River is a story of friendship, family, and innocence lost too soon.
Though they live in the same houses where they grew up, Jimmy (Penn), Dave (Robbins), and Sean (Bacon) have drifted apart over time. Their distance is due to a disturbing and violent episode that occurred when they were children. Even now, as adults married with kids, they have never managed to overcome their fear and guilt about what happened.
Dave and his wife (Harden) still live next door to Jimmy, who is married to a tough-sexy blond (Linney) and has three daughters. When Jimmy’s 19-year-old girl is murdered, he turns to Sean, who works as a policeman, and delivers an ultimatum: find the killer fast or I’ll go after him myself. Little do they know, the culprit is the last person they’d ever suspect. This movie screened in October 2003 as part of the 41st New York Film Festival organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
From his very first reading, director / producer Clint Eastwood knew he wanted to bring Dennis Lehane’s best-selling novel Mystic River to the screen. “I read the book and optioned it immediately,” he recalls. “It’s a riveting story with enormous potential as a film. The characters are complex, interesting and well defined.”
Eastwood, who won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for his landmark Western Unforgiven in 1993, brings a classically spare, candid approach to Mystic River. “This film is about real people trying to come to terms with who they are under very tough circumstances. It needs to be done honestly and it needs to ring true.”
Mystic River explores the interwoven history of three men, the terrible events that tainted their boyhood and shaped their futures, and the irrevocable choices they are ultimately forced to make. Individually, these characters must come to terms with their own personal demons, struggling with issues that bring an alarming momentum into the mix.
“Murder mysteries are usually only about solving the crime,” says Eastwood, “but in this case the story shows how, beyond the murder, all of the participants’ lives have been altered by the crime. One gets to see the impact a violent act has had, many years after the fact. It’s that tragic circle – all three of these men have unresolved issues in their lives. They have all been traumatized by the past. All became damaged goods.”
Mystic River
Childhood friends Jimmy, Dave and Sean grew up together, living and playing on the same neighborhood streets of South Boston. But when a shocking tragedy befell one of them, the boys stopped spending time together and eventually grew apart, each keeping his distance as if the others were living reminders of that devastating time. But while their lives may have led them in different directions, they were all turning away from the same painful place.
When Eastwood began considering what writer could best bring Dennis Lehane’s haunting novel to the screen, “Brian Helgeland immediately came to mind. He really liked the book and after conferring with him briefly, I said, ‘Why don’t you just dig in?’ He ripped right into it, writing the first draft in two weeks. I looked at it and felt it was a terrific interpretation of a complex book, filled with so much discussion and detail.”
Casting decisions reflected Eastwood’s sense of purpose and desire for quality without compromise, and a stellar cast was quickly assembled. “I sent the script to Sean Penn and he loved it right away,” Eastwood recounts. “Tim Robbins called, and as the word got out, other actors began calling. Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney are both terrific actresses with whom I had previously worked. This was a very pleasant experience because the actors all resonated so well together.”
Five cast members are prior Oscar nominees: Penn for Best Actor in I Am Sam and Dead Man Walking – a film that also garnered Robbins a nomination for Best Director – Fishburne for Best Actor in What’s Love Got to Do with It, Linney for Best Actress in You Can Count On Me and Marcia Gay Harden, who won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Pollock.
“I don’t think I could have found a better actor for any of the parts in this film,” says Eastwood. “Sean, Tim, Kevin, Laurence, Laura and Marcia are all simply outstanding. I had no doubts about the talent of this cast.”
In turn, the cast had no doubt that they were in extremely capable hands. “All of us had the sense that Clint’s storytelling would give the film a clear humility,” says Penn, “so our readings were done in order to make ourselves as familiar as possible with the material. In that way, whatever had to do with nuances and character choices became just a shorthand exchange with Clint and we wouldn’t have to refer back to the script. It becomes a cleaner, more decisive process because you know with each take that you can give it everything you have.”
“The key ingredient in this film is Clint Eastwood,” Robbins agrees. “Clint is a true artist in every respect. Despite his years of being at the top of his game and the legendary movies he has made, he always made us feel comfortable and valued on the set, treating us as collaborators and equals. We never got the feeling that he believed in his legend or asked us to honor it, although we did. It was a really great experience. There was never any kind of pettiness on his set; no screaming or stupid emotional displays from anybody, a very professional, adult environment. There is nothing condescending about the man or his crew and it invigorates you, making you feel like you did when you made your fist movie.”
Robbins plays the deeply troubled Dave. “Dave is one of these guys who finds a way to survive and exist despite a past filled with horrific events,” the actor muses. “Maybe what he should have done is left that neighborhood and started fresh somewhere, but he didn’t. He’s internalized his painful experience and not talked about it or dealt with it, so it has festered and festered for years. It’s not particularly fun, going to that dark place for long periods of time while you’re working, but fortunately, Clint provided such a professional and efficient environment to work in that it was a pleasure to be able to bring this character to life.”
Haunted by the devastating events of his childhood, Dave stayed in the poorer section of town, working menial jobs and eventually starting a family with his wife Celeste. When Jimmy’s 19-year-old daughter Katie is inexplicably murdered, the details of the crime slowly emerge and Celeste begins to break down under the weight of her uncertainty and dread.
Harden, who arrived in Boston early to immerse herself in the blue-collar world of Mystic River, felt a kinship with her character. “The story has an immediate, personal connection for me,” says the actress, “because Celeste has a young son, and I’m a mother with a four-year-old daughter. It also greatly appealed to me because it questions that moment in life when innocence is lost.”
While Dave was just trying to survive and get by, Jimmy followed a more turbulent route, developing into something of a criminal mastermind over the years. Running his own gang at the tender age of seventeen, he seemed untouchable. He married the most beautiful girl in the neighborhood and the two soon had a young daughter. Things might have gone on that way forever, until an associate rolled on him, ratting Jimmy out in exchange for a lighter sentence and condemning him to serve two years at Deer Island.
Tragically, his young wife was stricken with cancer while he was locked up, and when Jimmy got out he found himself a 22-year-old widower and the sole parent to a little girl who barely recognized him as her father. With 5-year-old Katie as his motivation, Jimmy determined to turn his back on his criminal past. Returning to the neighborhood to run a corner grocery, he re-married and had two other daughters. As their family continued to grow, Katie remained the light of his life. On the day she is found dead in Pen Park, that light goes out forever.
“Mystic River deals with a kind of unimaginable pain,” says Sean Penn. “I found myself drawing from the writing and the other actors. We spent a lot of time together, reading through the script and trying to find a kind of peace with the things that occur and the choices that are made. Our job was to make these impossibly painful situations dramatically understandable.”
Jimmy’s anchor throughout the tragedy is his love for his daughters and the strength of his fiercely devoted wife, whose loyalty to those closest to her knows no bounds. “Annabeth is tough; very, very tough,” says Laura Linney of her character. “She’s like a mother lion, very protective, with a huge sense of pride and entitlement. She’s always on guard – she’s got an ‘I dare you’ quality about her.”
As Jimmy was serving time, his boyhood buddy Sean aligned with the other side of the law, becoming a Massachusetts State homicide detective. Increasingly alienated from humanity by the never-ending indiscriminate cruelty he sees in the course of his investigations, and separated from his wife except for her painful, silent phone calls, Sean has come to question the meaning of his efforts.
Mystic River (2003)
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Clint Eastwood, Tim Robbins, Laura Linney, Marcia Gay Harden, Eli Wallach, Emmy Rossum, Kevin Chapman
Screenplay by: Brian Helgeland
Production Design by: Henry Bumstead
Cinematography by: Tom Stern
Film Editing by: Joel Cox
Costume Design by: Deborah Hopper
Set Decoration by: Richard C. Goddard
Music by: Clint Eastwood
MPAA Rating: R for language, violence.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: October 8, 2003
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