The script of Mystic River piles on the elements leading to Dave's death but they don't inform each other. The psychological disorder caused by his molestation makes it believable that Dave couldn't credibly defend himself against the false suspicion of murder, and since the murder he did commit is one he'd rather not talk about he does look guilty, but there's no thematic connection between child molestation and Katie's death. The makers want us to feel that the crime committed against Dave makes it inevitable that he be falsely accused and punished, that having been molested marks him the way his weakness as a boy marked him for the pedophiles in the first place. If that's the case, however, then his murder of the child molester is unnecessary and in fact dilutes this meaning because coming in bloody the night of Katie's death would cast suspicion on Dave whether or not he'd been raped as a boy.
From another perspective, Dave murders the pedophile that night because he'd been raped as a boy, but that's simply a plot connection, a way to make it plausible (and supposedly excusable) that he was out killing somebody that fateful night. (It leaves open the possibility of thinking, "Damn, if only he'd murdered the pedophile a week later!") That is, the various baleful actions in the movie are a pretty random assortment jury-rigged for plot purposes. (And not that sensibly: wouldn't it all be tighter if Jimmy's son had been killed?) Though Sean and Jimmy at one point speak elegiacally about Dave's abduction, saying it's as if all three of them had got in the car, the abduction has nothing essential to do with either Katie's or Dave's murder. It might as well have been aliens who abducted Dave; it could have been anything that set him up to be misunderstood.
There should also be some significance to the actual killers' motivation. Instead, Katie turns out to have been killed accidentally by her boyfriend's mute brother and a friend, waving a gun left in their apartment by the brothers' criminal father before he disappeared long ago. That father was the man who turned state's evidence and sent Jimmy to prison, for crimes committed by the Savages. When Jimmy got out of jail he murdered him (in the same backwater where he later kills Dave) and he had told Katie that she could never go with anyone from that family. But the boys didn't know about their father's relationship to Jimmy, and Katie's death was an accident.
So the family rivalry and retribution plot is woven into, and yet entirely incidental to, the contemporary action. (This is a movie with a veritable school of red herrings swimming through it.) Thus, at the heart of this supposed tragedy is a meaningless coincidence. In this interview with The Boston Phoenix, Helgeland compares the script to the story of Oedipus, but Oedipus's killing of his father wasn't a coincidence; it was fated so that even though it was foretold to him he couldn't avoid it by no matter how much effort. In Mystic River the fact that the killing was an accident means there's no sense in which Jimmy tragically set his daughter's death in motion by his own behavior earlier. She, too, might as well have been harmed by aliens.
Article comments
1 - Leila
Apparently, you blogs have no more knowledge of molestation than hogs. Forget the tangled interweaving of plot, the grimness of it all, etc. It's a realistically symbolic rendition of the sequelae ("consequences" to you) for many molested kids. They carry it with them forever, and, as a group, die younger than actuarial probabilities for the population-at-large.
It's called "soul murder" by CSA (Child Sexual Abuse) experts. And that's what this film is all about. So stuff all that poppycock where the sun don't shine when you know nothing of the subject you are critiquing.
Respectfully,
Leila
2 - W. C. Parker, Jr. Ph.D.
This is one the most fatuous, intellectually pretentious reviews of a movie or a novel I have ever seen. The review is also notable for its numerous slurs aimed at the director and actors.
The movie of course makes sense in its own frame of reference. Among other things, it suggests that a traditonal pattern of morality may still exist among people who are outside the pale of conventional institutionalized morality.
3 - Sara
In your review, you critique Eastwood and claim that he is too literal. However, I think you are the one that is being too literal in this interpretation of this movie. If you just read between the lines a little bit, you would see how the complexities by which Eastwood guides the audience's mind from being suspicious Dave to being sympathetic to his plight, and from feeling nothing but remorse for Jimmy to disappointment and disgust at how far he will go (all without investigating). I don't think that Eastwood was trying to make Jimmy the "good guy" at all, not even with Annabeth's speech. I viewed the entire ending as a giant, tragic irony, in the fact that the audience assumes that there is meaning behind a crime that turns out to be meaningless; there is irony when we learn that an innocent (well innocent of Katie's murder at least) and deeply vulnerable man was senselessly killed because of Jimmy's (in addition to the audience's) assumption of the significance of Katie's murder; and there is deep tragedy in the fact that no one bothered to understand the man that got stuck in the middle - Dave.
I will admit, the accents got schticky, and Annabeth's character development occurred at an odd time, but I think there is a great deal of melodrama in this film, and perhaps the only reason you did not notice it is because you are guilty of exactly that which you accuse Eastwood of doing - taking the plot too literally. If you just explored the subtleties, the poignancy of this film would resonate with you.
Thank you,
Sara