Thank you for a thoughtful review of a book/film that plumbs the depths of la condition humaine.

Dennis Lehane's other books go even deeper into the night.

I think Catholicism pervades every layer of the characters, and Sean Penn, a self-identified agnostic creates a moral universe in each of his films that addresses personal responsibility like few others - ref "The Pledge" and "21 Grams".

"The Crossing Guard" is similar in many ways to Mystic River, but somewhat stilted compared to this film.

Nice work on an absolute gut-punch of a movie. I think what thrilled me most about Mystic River was the leisurely pace of the film, with scenes playing out in languid fashion, passions, feuds and regrets revealed in small ways. Put together, each scene building upon another, eventually we are so engrossed and mesmerized, we cannot turn our faces away. It's like reading a great novel (I have not read Lehane's work). There was some suspense, especially during the predictable murder investigation scenes and during the eventual killing of a main character, but even these play out slowly, quietly. Eastwood's best work has ironically shied away from outright action or violence, instead focusing squarely on the characters and their quirks. A Perfect World is a great example. After watching this film, I was exhilarated and thrilled. Mystic River is filmmaking (and screenplay writing) at its finest....

i'm really glad you like this review. i thought about it a lot and have seen the film about seven times to get what i wanted to say down....
and i could still go on and on, but that would be more of a conversation. i 'd love to sit down with you all or someone else really into it and chat about it, because there's just so much in here. I think it's great that we can use the comments here to carry on a conversation after the review - it's gratifying to know that other people saw as much as i did in this film. I lived in this neighborhood for a long time and so a lot of what goes on the film was very familiar to me, not only because of where i lived in America, but also, that neighborhood is very much like the hood i grew up in in London, so it's a whole world that is unfamiliar to many people - thus, i focused on class lines, because people often say that there is no class sytem in America, but i think a film like Mystic River really shows that yes there is, and it's sadly, alive and well. The poor are always relegated to the ghetto and live by their own rules etc, and basically, nobody cares, just as long as they're killing each other.

i think, as i wrote, that Jimmy Markum is quite noble in some ways, and i remember saying this to someone whitecollar who seemed to totally disgree, which struck me as odd. I can see it, that yes, he acts hastily perhaps and makes a mistake as we all know, but i can still say that we all make mistakes and it's a whole different story when it's your kid or a white collar rich kid who disappears and the whole police force is on it. It's interesting to see how Sean Devine, the cop, is sort of laughed at by another minority (laurence fishburne who plays "Whitey" the other cop), who even though he is a minority himself, kind of looks down on the guys in the hood like Jimmy Markum, even asking him about the prison time he served as if he were a suspect in his own daughter's murder. Devine has to intervene and make sure that Whitey doesn't put his own stereotypes on the characters who live in this small part of Boston near the Mystic.

REad the book for sure. It's a great book and i'm on to read other of Lehane's books. I would love to interview Lehane. I think he would be a good person to really talk to so maybe i'll see if i can chase him down to talk about some of these issues; i met him years ago, but at the time, he hadn't published as much and i was working for a different publisher but i still immediately identified with Lehane for reasons i noted in this piece.

argh. i go on and on.

thx. for reading this - any and all thoughts are welcome. i'll check out other review of this film - i'm sure there must be others here on blogcritics....

rock on.

sade

I can see some of the "old school" philosophy being played out on the streets of tough Boston, and perhaps this is never more apparent than one of the film's final shots, when the wife of Dave Boyle is strangely isolated and alone, a leper within her community. There's a street code on this side of the tracks, and it's a code that has been around long before Boston was a town. Loyalty is very important in this neighborhood, and Celeste Boyle, for better or worse, made the wrong decision. One suspects she will not be forgiven, thus, with the sun shining and parade marching by, she is looking for someone, anyone. She's no longer a part of this neighborhood.

What is most terrifying of all is a simple question. What would you have done in her place?

Perhaps the very same thing.

right about how Celeste is cut off from her own neighborhood. This the answer to your question re; what would i have done in her position?

answer: i would never ever ever turn my back on my husband. in short, i've always got my husband's back, regardless of anythign else. If someone even says something about my husband, i don't really want to know them anymore. I identify far more with Annabeth, Jimmy Markum's wife, who is incredibly loyal to her family - fiercely protective, like a lioness protecting her cubs and her den. I 'd likely be the same way. I can't imagine doing what Celeste does - as Annabeth says, "What kind of wife does that?" and i understood completely. Yes, what kind of wife does that?

The thing is, i think Celeste always had a thing for Jimmy Markum and wished that she coudl just touch that royalty thing he had going on, come close to it, and that Dave was a bit of a failure to her, though she loved him, some part of her was always jealous of Annabeth and you can tell by the way she treats Jimmy that part of her reason for telling isnt' so much about Katie, but is about herself - that she has this small crush or large crush. That's by no means her only reason, but i think you have to factor that into it. I think that's part of it. At least, that is what i, as a woman, saw in her behavior at certain moments. I think Jimmy, like many men, and this is not a criticism, was blind to Celeste's feelings, but Annabeth clearly is not - she ices her out not only because she told on her husband, but because she knows damn well that Celeste has always had a thing for Jimmy.

In any event, i would never turn my back on my husband, and i do mean never. Even if i thought he had killed someone - i'd really get it out of him and talk to him and figure out what to do together - i'd never just go and DO without really dealing with him first. To me, that's part of what makes a good marriage, is that you always have each other's back.

A similar thing happens in Unfaithful, but Diane Lane decides to stick to her husband, and though the end is a bit ambiguous, she still is loyal to him in her way after he kills her lover. IT's clear that she would choose her husband, only too bad she didn't make that decision before she took a lover to avoid the whole mess, but alas, we are fallible. It's not the same, and they are upperclass in that film clearly, so their decision to hide a murder from the police is slightly different in tone, but it's the same thing.

But Celeste Boyle - i think she is pathetic in a way, and i say that in a heartfelt way because i do pity her. I feel sorry for her, but i also know that i'd be one of those people standing at the parade clapping. She broke the code, and once you do that, the community is not going to take you back and give you a second chance. You get one chance when it's sink or swim, when it's that tough, you just can't fuck up like that the way she did. I also think that regardless of how much she may have thought she believed Dave did it, she also on some level knew that he didn't. I believe that. I think she knew damn well, and then probably immediately regretted it, as is clear the next morning because she knows.

Didshe think Jimmy would leave Annabeth because she turned over "the killer" (who happened tobe the wrong guy), but even if it had been the right guy, JImmy Markum was never going to leave his family for her. the whole thing is in her head.. and that's sad.

Hope that answers your question. I guess i've lived enough of this life both in Eurpe and now in the states and in the same neighborhood that i've seen things go down that shouldn't have gone down, but were resolved by the locals, and not by the police. Street justice, though i can't say it's a great thing, i will say that it does usually work. I always felt safe in that neighborhood - i always felt protected because i lived by the code and never swayed. I was accepted because of that. If anyone hurt me, then i made sure certain others found out and they took care of whatever.

It sounds strange to others, i'm sure, but these things really do happen, and they happen right here and they happen in urban ghettos or neighborhoods all over the country, all over the world. You have to live it, i guess, to know how much this is NOT fiction.

Poor Celeste Boyle , yes, but she brought the boom down all by herself and should have known better.

You never turn your back on your family. Ever.

amen, and over and out.

sade