Mystic River

Mystic River (also known as Mystic River and Mystic River) is a 2003 American drama film directed by Clint Eastwood. It had wide critical acclaim and was nominated for 6 Oscars, of which it won two, for Best Actor (Sean Penn) and Best Supporting Actor (Tim Robbins). The film is based on Dennis Lehane's novel of the same name.

Synopsis

The film begins in the 1970s, when three boys, Jimmy Markum, Sean Devine and Dave Boyle play hockey in a street. As they play, Dave hits the ball into a culvert, but they can't get it back, leaving them with nothing to play with. Jimmy convinces his two friends to write their names in fresh concrete. When Dave was writing his name, two men arrive pretending to be policemen and they ask each one where they live. The supposed police officers decide to take Dave to his house, but they turn out to be pedophiles who kidnap Dave. After four days of captivity Dave manages to escape from his captors. This experience leaves Dave with a deep psychological disorder.

25 years later, each one lives a separate life: Jimmy, after spending two years in jail for robbery, married Marita, his first wife, who died of cancer and with whom he had Katie, his eldest daughter. After a while he remarried and had two more daughters. Dave married Celeste, a cousin of Jimmy's wife with whom he had a son, while Sean became a Boston detective.

The story begins to unfold when Jimmy's daughter, Katie, is brutally murdered. Jimmy decides to seek out and exact revenge on Katie's murderers, whereupon he sends the Savage brothers (her criminal brothers-in-law of his, his wife's brothers) to investigate and thus stay one step ahead of the police. Sean takes the case, begins to put the pieces together and discovers that the weapon with which Katie was murdered was the same with which they held up a liquor store in 1985.

The night Katie was murdered, Dave returns stressed, bloody, and injured, telling Celeste that he killed a guy who tried to mug him. Faced with the evidence, Celeste believes him, although she later becomes suspicious of Dave and begins to establish "coincidences"; about that night and to fear the worst.

As Sean's investigation progresses, Celeste becomes suspicious of Dave. Sean questions Dave about the blood found in his car, claiming the blood was the same type as Katie's, but Dave gets away with saying his car was reported stolen and he didn't have it. in power that same night.

The Savage brothers inform Jimmy, who was at the time in a cemetery choosing the headstone for his daughter's grave, that Dave has been taken in for questioning by some police officers. Upon returning home, he meets Celeste, who is somewhat upset and worried at the same time. She tells him about the night Dave came home wounded, bloody, and she had to kill a guy. Celeste tells him that she doesn't believe him and that because of her behavior, he is Katie's killer.

Sean decides Dave had nothing to do with the crime. Investigating the origins of the gun, he discovers someone named Ray, & # 34; Just Ray & # 34; ("Ray to dry"). Realizing this, Sean reviews the file and discovers that Jimmy and he were accomplices in the robbery of a liquor store in 1982, but that months later Ray was captured by the police, although to avoid jail he made a deal with the police.: he would give them information in exchange for letting him go free. Ray ratted on Jimmy and he went to jail. Upon release from prison, Jimmy murders Ray, but Jimmy sends Ray's family $500 a month.

Sean questions Ray's son, Brendan, who was Katie's boyfriend and Jimmy never liked him because of his father's past. Brendan denies that his father had a gun. After releasing Brendan, Sean and his partner review the recording of Katie's 911 murder notification and realize the killer was closer than they thought.

The Savage brothers pick Dave up on the street and invite him out for a drink, but it's just a scheme hatched by Jimmy. After a round of drinks, Jimmy arrives at the bar where the Savage brothers are chatting with Dave. After a while, an almost drunk Dave goes out to vomit at the back of the bar, on the banks of the Mystic. At that moment Jimmy uncovers his letters and threatens to kill Dave if he doesn't tell him why he killed Katie. He, distraught and above all scared, tells her that he did not kill his daughter and what he did that night was kill a pedophile who was having relations with a minor. Jimmy doesn't believe him and questions him over and over again why he killed his daughter. Dave agrees to say why he killed her (even though he didn't) so he tells her that he killed her because he saw in her a promise of youth that he didn't get for getting into the car in which she kidnapped.

After the 'confession' from Dave, Jimmy brutally stabs Dave in the stomach. The Savage brothers pass him a gun with which Jimmy intends to finish off Dave. "As I said, you do this part by yourself," these are the words Jimmy says to Dave before shooting him and throwing his body into the Mystic.

Meanwhile, at that moment, Brendan, after coming back from debriefing, searches and finds the gun. Soon after, his younger brother, who is mute, arrives with his friend. Brendan, having connected the dots, beats up his brother and his friend, who are actually Katie's real killers.

The next morning, in the middle of a street, Sean tells Jimmy, who was drunk, that they found the culprits. Brendan's brother and his friend. They accidentally killed her, it was an accident and they had confessed to the crime. Sean tells him about Celeste's concerns, that Dave hasn't made it home, and that they've found the body of a dead pedophile (the same one Dave murdered). Jimmy, clearly shocked, realizes that he has killed an innocent man and a friend. That he has killed a devastated guy whose youth was taken from him, and ultimately, his life, the day he was kidnapped as a child. So, Jimmy tells Sean that they acted very slowly and there he implies that he killed Dave believing that he was Katie's murderer. Then Sean reconciles with the mother of his daughter. The next day at the parade Sean and Jimmy catch eyes and Sean swears revenge for Dave with a sign.

Awards and nominations

Oscar Awards 2003

Golden Globes

Reception

Mystic River was well received by critics, especially for its direction and outstanding performances by its cast. The film has an 87% approval rating on the specialized website Rotten Tomatoes. On the Metacritic website, the film has an average rating of 84 out of 100, based on 42 reviews. Peter Travers, of Rolling Stone , wrote: "Clint Eastwood puts everything he knows about filmmaking into Mystic River. It's a charming and hypnotic film".

Impact in Europe

Clint Eastwood has directed many movies. However, most of them are aimed at the American public, such as Gran Torino, Million Dollar Baby, El francotirador, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima and J. Edgar. However, the film Mystic River is not aimed at a specific audience, hence its success in Europe.

When Eastwood visited Spain to promote the film, he learned that the great debate about the film among Spanish viewers had been its open ending. The curious thing about the subject is that Eastwood stated that his objective had not been to offer the public an open ending and that he was delighted that in Europe the viewers had raised it that way because that meant that they had seen the film with great intensity.