*** Official MYSTIC RIVER Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Gatie]

Saw this yesterday. Also read the amazing book (Lehane's detective serial novels are excellent, especially for Boston natives). Penn is superb, Robbins and Harden also. A few points, all my opinion of course -

Penn assumed his real persona when he put on the leather jacket and appeared in public with the Savage brothers. He went from his cover of reformed store owner to street thug by donning the same outer wear as the rest of the gang.

Sean's explanation of the "accidental" murder obviously was not the whole story. I surmised he did not want to reveal that Ray killed the girl to prevent his brother from running off because Jimmy would just blame the boyfriend, so he glossed it over.

I don't understand how anyone mistook Sean and Whitey for FBI when they were in a briefing that had the Mass State Police logo on the podium, stated numerous time why the park was state jurisdiction and were surrounded by state cops and cruisers when they found the body.

Celeste obviously knew about Dave's abduction. She just did not know the details.

The cross was an obvious shot at the Catholic Church scandal. Certainly blatant, but not too cheap to us Boston residents who have been hearing the (now true) "altar boy" stories since we were kids.

The scene with Jimmy's wife felt forced and I thought Eastwood related Jimmy's real occupation much better by not stating it blatantly. This scene was in the book, however and was a definate turning point.


As others have stated, the movie ended with the chase just beginning and I found this to be one of the best parts. No neat, tidy endings for me, thanks. MOF, the ambiguousness of the whole film is what made it for me.

 

[Nick C.]

The scene with Jimmy's wife felt forced and I thought Eastwood related Jimmy's real occupation much better by not stating it blatantly. This scene was in the book, however and was a definate turning point.

I think it feels forced, as others in the thread have noted, because Lady Anna-beth came out of nowhere, that her character has so few scenes and lines and we've virtually forgotten her relationship to the Savages/criminals by that time in the movie. By turning point, do you mean the book suggested Jimmy's conscience was cleared up by Annabeth's self-effacing monologue? Or that we truly discover the sinister nature of the couple/family?

 

[Jeff Gatie]

By turning point, do you mean the book suggested Jimmy's conscience was cleared up by Annabeth's self-effacing monologue

No, it was definately not to assuage Jimmy's conscience. It was to confirm the real role that Jimmy was playing and that his life was forever married (figuratively and literally) to the mob/gang. It was always implied in the novel that his wife stood behind him, but this scene was a confirmation that the wife stood behind *everything*. It was a scary scene in the book, quite chilling.

I see a lot of Whitey Bulger in Jimmy; being thought a "good guy" just as Whitey was worshipped in Southie, yet he was really a thug and a killer. Lehane's novels tend to be steeped in Boston lore and this was one that showed more than a trace of the Southie legend in it.

 

[MikeMcNertney]

Someone mentioned that they didn't need continuous reinforcement of the image of young dave running through the woods. I felt that was an important part of Dave's character. The impression I got from this and from various things that were said was that while his experience obviously troubled him, he had buried it in his subconcious for many years. The sight of the pedophile and his resulting violent release are what brought all the old memories to the surface. The repeated flashes of young dave serve to demonstrate that he is dealing with these memories that he had previously repressed.

Also, people have mentioned that Celeste didn't know about his abduction. I'm pretty sure she *did* know, but that he had never shared the details. When he said the abductors' names and was talking about it she said something like "you mean when you were a little boy?" which indicated to me that she definitely knew that he'd been abducted. Whether she simply didn't know the details or she was too upset at the thought of him killing Katie to think straight, I'm not sure

 

[Nick C.]

Also, people have mentioned that Celeste didn't know about his abduction. I'm pretty sure she *did* know, but that he had never shared the details. When he said the abductors' names and was talking about it she said something like "you mean when you were a little boy?" which indicated to me that she definitely knew that he'd been abducted. Whether she simply didn't know the details or she was too upset at the thought of him killing Katie to think straight, I'm not sure

Also contributing to her fearful state at the time was Dave's ramblings (actually very coherent analogy) about vampires and molested children... this must have made it even more difficult to comprehend his talk of Henry and George

speaking of which, if Celeste knew of his abduction, why didn't Dave tell her the truth about where his injuries and blood came from the night of Katie's death? (I can understand his hiding it from the detectives) Is it psychological, such that he wanted to continue repressing those horrid memories, or more just thematic reasons/suspense decided upon by the author/screenwriters? It certainly made his murder more dramatic, to be killed right when the truth is finally revealed.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Is it psychological, such that he wanted to continue repressing those horrid memories, or more just thematic reasons/suspense decided upon by the author/screenwriters

How about both. The best authors work the suspense into the plot of their stories. It is convenient for the author to reveal the real reason at the end, but is it so farfetched that a husband with serious mental problems he has been trying to suppress for years to hide the fact that those problems led him to kill someone? Dave was a good man who was a victim of his past. It is quite ironic that the only morally pure part of the movie (Dave killing a child molester in the act of rape) is what leads to his downfall.

 

[Brent Bridgeman]

The reason that Dave didn't want to admit to killing the pedophile is that he would then have to admit (both to Celeste and Jimmy) that he killed him because he was like him and hated that part of himself. In the book he was trying to be the kid's "protector".

In the book, Celeste knows he was abducted, but knows no details as Dave would never talk about the "wolves".

Sean's relationship with his estranged wife is a plot device, not part of the plot. It's there to show that all three of the boys were "damaged goods" in some way after Dave was abducted, but that there can be redemption, if only for one of them.

Jimmy did feel remorse after killing Dave (and also Just Ray Harris), and was close to being suicidal that night. But, he did a lot of justification of his actions to himself and his true, almost sociopathic, nature won out.

Dave did plead for his life in the book, but told Jimmy the lie because Jimmy said he wouldn't kill him if he admitted that he killed Katie. He didn't want to tell the truth because, again, he would have to admit that he was having the same urges as the man he killed.

It was made pretty clear that Sean was going to keep pursuing Dave's murder and that Jimmy was going back to his old ways and rejoin his old crew and get rid of the punks that were ruining the neighborhood by not committing their crimes outside the neighborhood.

Now, all this is from the book as I haven't had a chance to see the movie yet.

 

[Stephen_Dar]

It is quite ironic that the only morally pure part of the movie (Dave killing a child molester in the act of rape) is what leads to his downfall.

Ironic is one word, though I'd use "contrived, moronic, and irritating" myself.

 

[Brent Bridgeman]

It is quite ironic that the only morally pure part of the movie (Dave killing a child molester in the act of rape) is what leads to his downfall.

In the book, this action is anything but morally pure. Dave kills the guy just as much because he sees himself becoming like the pedophile, and feels the temptation, as he does to protect the kid. Also, in the book, the kid is a child prostitute selling himself on the street. Is this different in the movie? If so, that changes Dave's character and later motivations a lot.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

You are right Brent, it's been a while since I read the book. I do recall now that Dave had a battle between the urges to become what he loathed and the urges to fight against it. But I think that emphasizes the fact that Dave is a troubled man who may have been doing right (eliminating a predator), but for the wrong (inner) reasons. Contrast this with Jimmy, who killed Dave for what he thought was right (revenge for his daughter), but was ultimately wrong. The book and the movie were much more a character study about the origins and outcomes of evil than a who-done-it. I feel some may have missed this and rejected the movie as a bad who-done-it. I feel it is much deeper than this, others may disagree. I do disagree that there was no subtlety in the movie, the disparate opinions in this thread on the meanings and plotlines are evidence of that.

It was intimated in the movie that the child was a prostitute. Dave had mentioned child prostitutes being in the area and he gave the same "get out of here" to the kid, who did not have the look of someone who was being forced to service the guy Dave killed.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

Jonathan Rosenbaum weighs in with his review he recently posted. I think he copied some of my earlier comments :

We're asked to accept not only that Celeste has known nothing about Dave's childhood trauma until recently, though she grew up in the same neighborhood, but that she's so terrified by his aberrant behavior, even after years of being married to him, that she thinks he murdered Katie and is willing to say so to Jimmy, sealing his doom.

His full review can be found here.

~Edwin

 

[Robert Crawford]

I didn't read the book, but I thought Celeste knew about Dave's abduction without her knowing a lot of the details.




Crawdaddy

 

[Michael Reuben]

Rosenbaum confirms my findings

I swore to myself that I wouldn't get into this fly-specking debate, where actions in a movie are put under a normative microscope and judged improbable. But Edwin, I can't sit by while you qualify what puports to be a critical assessment as "findings" -- as if there were something scientific about this whole enterprise.

With all due respect, I wouldn't say Rosenbaum confirmed your assessment. I'd say he shares some of your blindspots.

I have never read the book, but as noted above, there is a conversation in the movie between Celeste and Dave in which Celeste refers to what happened "when you were a boy". From this it is clear that she's aware of the basic events of the childhood abduction. But she clearly doesn't know everything, and she certainly doesn't realize how much this childhood trauma has come to inform Dave's every waking moment. The performances and the mise en scene make it painfully obvious that Celeste and Dave are not close, although they once might have been. Dave's primary family relationship is with his son, of whom he is obviously overprotective (we never see him playing with other children) and through whom Dave is trying to recreate the childhood he feels was stolen from him.

There's a palpable sense of alienation between Dave and Celeste that ripens into suspicion and distrust when Dave will not tell Celeste how he came to be bloodied and injured. One suspects that this alienation grew as their son matured and as Dave focused more and more of his emotions on the youngster in whom he sees himself, as he was. It's that lopsided attachment that we see in the storybook scene. It's what sends Dave over the edge into murder. And it's what sends Celeste fleeing to Jimmy; at some level, I think she knows he didn't kill Katie, but she also knows there's something dreadfully wrong with Dave, and she's afraid of him. Without quite being conscious of it, she goes to Jimmy for protection.

M.

P.S. Edwin, I find it ironic that your touchstone is realism, and yet you find it unrealistic that Bacon and Fishburne each assumed the other had checked the 911 tape. Well, in real life people make mistakes all the time. For example, they mistake characters clearly identified as state police for FBI agents.

 

[Arman]

"The critical community has spoken: Clint Eastwood's Mystic River is a masterpiece and a profound, tragic statement about who we are and the inevitability of violence in our lives -- a pitiless view, in which violence begets violence and the sins of the fathers pass to later generations.
Presumably these qualities are also in Dennis Lehane's best-selling novel, which I haven't read, but it's the movie that's drawing most of the superlatives from American critics. The acclaim started after the film premiered at Cannes, when much of the griping American press seemed to see it as a vindication of American filmmaking, an answer to the terrible state of cinema in general. Some of those critics may have seen it as a vindication of U.S. patriotism as well -- one reason it's likely to rack up plenty of Oscars.

The last Eastwood movie that provoked biblical language and allusions to Greek tragedy was Unforgiven (1992), which also saw violence as both awful and unavoidable -- our destiny and perhaps even our birthright. Now the dark vision of Mystic River is being touted as a form of higher wisdom graced with noble feelings that for some reviewers mysteriously translates into high art. The New Yorker's David Denby, who can usually be counted on for such judgments, doesn't disappoint: "'Mystic River,' with its gray, everyday light, is a work of art in a way that, say, 'The Big Sleep' and 'Out of the Past,' which were shaped as melodrama and shot in glamorous chiaroscuro, were not. Mystic River is as close as we are likely to come on the screen to the spirit of Greek tragedy (and closer, I think, than Arthur Miller has come on the stage)." If Denby had given it more thought, he might have put even Aeschylus (and his lighting schemes) second to Clint. I find less suspect the reviews that have linked Mystic River to opera -- an art form that's generally enhanced rather than reduced by melodrama.

But the larger issue isn't the degree to which Eastwood's movie qualifies as art. It's why reviewers are so desperate to establish its artistic pedigree. Many debates have been waged in the past -- often sparked by Pauline Kael -- about whether Eastwood the director deserves to be considered an artist rather than a poseur or a popular entertainer. But since Kael herself often, and rightly, celebrated popular entertainment and certain forms of chicanery as legitimate art, there's something peevish about her objections to him."


Thank God for Rosenbaum!

Edwin,

When did Rosenbaum write his MR reviews? If he wrote it just very recently, I think you are right, he read our criticisms of MR (and some major critics for hailing this not so extraordinary film as masterpiece) before writing that reviews. . I was about to post that prediction too that Mystic River will likely rack up (undeservingly!) plenty of Oscars. I'm sorry but IMHO, Mystic River is this year's Chicago.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

I find it ironic that your touchstone is realism, and yet you find it unrealistic that Bacon and Fishburne each assumed the other had checked the 911 tape. Well, in real life people make mistakes all the time. For example, they mistake characters clearly identified as state police for FBI agents.

As I have previously acknowledged, I stand corrected for my mistaken identity of the Bacon and Fishburne characters.

At least, my mistake was not made more than once and used as a plot device unlike the 911 tape mistake that clearly survived its transformation from book to film even after going through so many readings by the screenwriter, director, actors and other principals in the film.

~Edwin

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

When did Rosenbaum write his MR reviews?

Arman, as indicated in my link above, his review was dated yesterday, October 24th.

~Edwin

 

[Vickie_M]

I'm with Michael and Robert. I hadn't read the book, and it seemed clear to me that Celeste knew about the abduction, but not details directly from Dave.

As Michael says, they didn't seem close, not that that makes much difference. She probably only knew about the abduction because she grew up in the neighborhood, and it was common knowledge (and probably a scary story parents would tell their children to keep them from getting into cars with strangers). It wouldn't surprise me if he'd never mentioned it to her until he started unraveling.

I guess I don't understand what the problem is here anyway. Even if she didn't know about the abduction, so what? Why is that not plausible? While it's silly to speculate on what a fictional character might do, I would guess that if Dave had moved to Alaska and met Celeste there, she still wouldn't know about his abduction. Unless Edwin and Rosenbaum can speak from experience and arrogance (i.e. "Something bad happened to me and I told my spouse all about it, therefore EVERYONE who has had something bad happen to them must tell their spouses all about it" - see how silly that sounds? Almost as bad as "Nothing bad has ever happened to me, but if it had, I'd tell my spouse all about it, therefore EVERYONE who has had something bad happen to them must tell their spouses all about it"), then I think this point should be dropped. It's kinda embarrassing that two very intelligent people even thought to bring it up.

Mystic River has some problems. Celeste knowing or not knowing about his abduction is not one of them.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

Mystic River has some problems. Celeste knowing or not knowing about his abduction is not one of them.

I’m sorry but I disagree especially if one character’s unexplained actions (or clouded intentions) contributed or led to the unwarranted demise of another. It’s called a contrivance.

~Edwin

 

[Michael Reuben]

It’s called a contrivance.

Every fiction is a series of contrivances. The question is what they add up to. For a lot of viewers of Mystic River, they add up to a moving and powerful film. Suggestions like Rosenbaum's (and by others in this thread) that such viewers are somehow faking their reaction are just plain silly. It would be like my saying that everyone who likes Kill Bill has been blinded by their enthusiasm for Tarantino. That might make me feel better about not liking the film, but it wouldn't add anything meaningful to the discussion.

M.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Edwin,
You would be surprised how many mistakes are made in a criminal investigation which is why if a crime is not solved in a certain amount of time, the investigators go over the details of the investigation again to see if there is something they missed the first time.





Crawdaddy