Monday, October 13, 2003

Mystic River

Dark and despairing story about three friends in a Boston working class neighborhood. Their lives are changed forever when one of the boys is kidnapped while they are playing in the street. Thirty years later, the 19-year-old daughter of the Sean Penn character is murdered. The kidnapped boy, now married and barely able to work (Tim Robbins), and the other friend (Kevin Bacon, a state trooper detective), are thrown back together with devastating results. Not a lot of hope, though the filmmaking is fine - Clint Eastwood's work is excellent. Why such a dark, sad, dead-end story appealed to him (almost a story of despair), I don't know except that I had the same feeling from this as I had from Unforgiven. Bleak. The women are very good - Marcia Gay Hardin and Laura Linney - she's downright Lady MacBeth. For those of us who know Boston, though, it will ring true. Filmed on location in Boston, you feel like you are there.

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