Entering again into the Boston, Massachusetts world of Dennis Lehane with a movie inspired by his book Mystic River, Clint Eastwood produced and directed the movie adaptation named Mystic River (2003). The movie looks into the world of three men as family and crime mingle together in the present day when a new crime echoes back to a crime the three experienced as children.
The three friends relive the crime of childhood abduction and sexual misconduct by a pair of adults who come upon the three being kids in the urban streets of Boston. Jimmy Markum, Sean Devine and Dave Boyle, portrayed by Jason Kelly, Connor Paolo and Cameron Bowen, witness adults passing themselves off as members of the Boston Police Department abduct Boyle and drive off with him. Boyle would escape the abduction within a week, yet not until after being seriously wronged physically and emotionally.
Fast forward to an adulthood where Markum and Boyle are parents and Devine has become a police detective; Kevin Bacon portrayed Sean Devine. We learn that Jimmy has grown to have children as a young man and subsequently from a marriage to Annabeth Markum; Laura Linney portrayed Annabeth Markum. Emmy Rossum portrayed Katherine ‘Katie’ Markum, the eldest to Jimmy Markum as portrayed by Sean Penn. The drama and mystery for the movie takes hold when the shoe drops with Katie not making it to work or home on the day of a familial first communion shortly after we are introduced to her.
The disappearance of Katie Markum becomes neighborhood news only after Dave Boyle, as portrayed by Tim Robbins, has come home to his wife both covered in blood and acknowledging that he had messed up. Boyle and his wife Celeste Samarco Boyle, as portrayed by Marcia Gay Harden, begin the initial aftermath of Katie’s disappearance supportive of the Markum family. The neighborhood relationship with the police is strained and running in parallel with the pressure applied by Jimmy Markum and his associates. Detective Sergeant Whitey Powers, as portrayed by Laurence Fishburne, pursue an increasingly complex storyline of responsibility for the disappearance and death in front of them today.
The compelling notion of these familial strands through the course of the movie become stronger as we see characters interacting with the pressure of the unknown in front of them. It’s not clear for much of the movie who was responsible for Katie Markum’s fate; the notion of familial loyalty and familial love, with the cost of the past introducing different choices on characters central and tangential to the primary narrative not coming into focus much later than I had been anticipating. That this leads to some unfortunate results, interconnecting past and present with the notions of fate and destiny, give Mystic River a tremendous punch that really resonates.
This movie surpassed my expectations for storyline especially. The emotional tone of the performances were more on-point for Mystic River than I have experienced with other adaptations of Dennis Lehane movies, which is praise for the larger experience I had in engaging with the underlying story. I grant the Clint Eastwood directed and produced movie Mystic River 4.5-stars on a scale of one-to-five.
Matt – Wednesday, July 5, 2023
Matt Lynn Digital 