Nothing is absolute, perfection has no depth, so there are plenty of movies like this for me, I'm a discerning guy, but the king of this hill is Mystic River.
I had read the book a couple years ago and it catapulted into my top 20 books. Dennis Lehane says he wasn't quite ready to write the book when he started. He felt he had to write a few books to get to where he wanted to be in order to write Mystic River. So he wrote the Kenzie and Genarro detective series. It was then he felt he was ready. Pouring everything into the book, Lehane says the first 50 pages are the most autobiographical from his growing up in Boston. There is a tremendous psychological tension and focus on these characters as they get pinballed from grueling decision to grueling decision. The book is a Shakespearean tragedy. A Macbeth with Boston accents.
Brian Helgeland took on script duties when it came time to make it into a film. It only took two years from it hitting book shelves to hitting theater screens. Like LA Confidential, the book has three protagonists. Also like LA Confidential, it's a sprawling 500 page monster. Helgeland's work on the script for LA Confidential has shown that, though its practically impossible to retain everything from a book that big in order to make a 2 and a half hour movie, what is important is to maintain the essence of the book. He does exactly that with River.
The cast are all on their A-game here. Sean Penn as Jimmy, Tim Robbins as Dave and Kevin Bacon as Sean, Marcia Gay Harden as Celeste Boyle and Laura Linney as Annabeth Markum.
Annabeth's brothers are the Savage brothers. The two goons Jimmy takes with him to corner Dave Boyle into ultimately confessing to a crime he didn't commit. Annabeth reinforces that Jimmy did the right thing in a terrifying "Daddy is King" monologue toward the end. She knows exactly who Jimmy is and finds strength in enabling him at his absolute worst.
Celeste doesn't have the strength or support Annabeth has but she does crave it. You see this through the story. She views herself as weak up until her husband Dave comes home with blood all over him.She immediately goes into action: hiding the clothes, making sure he's ok. It's only when she finds out that Jimmy's daughter was murdered on the same night that she begins to second guess herself. This is a piece of writing that struck a nerve. Her second guessing combined with that craving of support provides a tragic arrow toward her husband Dave.
The crux of the story and why it has such an impact on me is it dealing with childhood trauma that never stops traumatizing. It's why King's It has such an effect on me. There's a scene right at the beginning when the three boys are drawing their names in wet cement. Jimmy's name is right above Sean. Indicating his power over him. Dave is at the bottom and half way done. He didn't stand a chance. Lehane makes a class distinction between the three of them in the book. When John Doman's character comes out of his car and walks up to them, he makes a choice. He sees in Jimmy's eyes that he's a fighter and he will put up a fight. Sean is middle class with a chip on his shoulder. All he has to do is go in his front door and he is protected. Dave is a weaker character than Jimmy and the fake cop can see it. So he chooses him.
That was the last time Jimmy saw Dave.
WHY IT'S NOT AN A+
Clint Eastwood has never impressed me as a director. I remember watching Unforgiven as a kid and digging the characters played by Clint and Gene Hackman. But that was it. You can say he is more concerned with subtracting than adding in order to highlight the performances. That's fine. It's just with Eastwood you don't have a particularly interesting style. There's a classiness to it. None of the scenes feel as elemental as the performances within them.
This is why Mystic River is so frustrating. Had another director directed it, this could have been Top 50 easily.
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