Just watched Mystic River - a few questions (OPEN SPOILERS!)

Cafe Society
1

OK so I just watched Mystic River, and overall I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I thought the acting was phenomenal, at any rate, but there were some things that, well, just didn’t quite make sense.

  1. Was I ever supposed to think that Dave committed the murder? I mean, it seemed blatantly obvious to me that he hadn’t, one because, well, it was too obvious, but I got the impression I was supposed to start wondering if he had committed the murder after all.

  2. The scene where Brendan figures out his brother was involved confuses me a bit. One, his poker face when he first answered the question about his father’s gun seemed too good - no beat (that I picked up on, anway) while he processed the information and lied to cover his brother’s tracks. Two - why would he have covered his brother’s tracks? He went straight home and confronted his brother - it seems to me he would have told the cops what happened eventually anyway. Then, the whole bit where he demanded he speak… The implication seemed to be that his brother had made the 911 call, but Brendan hadn’t heard the 911 call. And if that wasn’t the desired intention, then what the hell was the point of him insisting that he speak? Also, once it was clear that the brother had committed the murder, the brickwork seemed to be laid that the motive was that the brother was jealous that the victim was going to steal the only thing he loved away from him - Brendan. But no, it all turned out to be a horrible, coincidental accident.

  3. Did we really need the Kevin Bacon/Estranged Wife subplot? What did it have to do with anything? It had zero emotional impact on me - in fact Bacon’s character was one of the ones that had the least emotional weight, in my opinion. So why throw in some sappy ending that served no apparent purpose to the movie?

  4. Laura Linney’s little Lady MacBeth turn at the end of the movie just kinda… mystified me. I can understand her viewpoint, but some of it just seemed superflous - like the line about Jimmy one day running the town. It almost seemed like a clumsy setup for a sequel: “Jimmy Runs the Town!” or something. Had this speech taken place somewhere in the middle of the movie - with her basically telling Jimmy she would support him in whatever he did because anything done in the name of family was justified - that would have made a lot more sense. But tacked onto the end, it just felt unneccessary.
    But I just have to say, Sean Penn’s performance at the bear cage where his daughter was found… One of the most powerful performances I’ve seen since Norma Rae fighting against being put in the police car or Celie fighting against being separated from her sister.

2

  1. Yes, you are supposed to believe that Dave did commit the murder.

  2. I don’t think Brendan figured out that his brother was involved until after he found the gun was missing. I think he was checking to see if the gun was there, just to be sure since the cops were asking so many questions about it. Once he discovers it is gone, he then realizes that his brother was involved.

  3. and 4. Completely agree on both counts. The Bacon/Wife story line was just boring, but Linney’s wierd episode at the end was just bizzare in my opinion. It really was hard to watch that scene, IMO, because it felt so forced. Way to over the top.

This is still one of my favorite movies, however. The acting by Robbins, Penn and Gay-Harden was incredible. I like the overall plot line, despite the distractions above.

3

It was definitely a great movie.

Don’t know why I never questioned Dave’s guilt. In fact, at the moment that Celeste told Jimmy that she thought Dave had done it (and possibly earlier, when the Savage Bros told Jimmy Dave was a suspect), I saw the whole outline for the rest of the movie play out - that Jimmy would kill Dave, before finding out that someone else was the killer. The more I think about it, the more inclined I am to think it was a mediocre plot made excellent by stellar acting.

4

At first I was questioning Jimmy’s guilt. All the blood and his brooding behavior. After a little while I didn’t think he was the killer but was involved. Then when Jimmy had him in the bar you knew it was going to end badly. I thought he was innocent and wondering how he would get out of it with Jimmy when Whammo!

The subplot with the silent wife was dumb. Maybe there’s a deleted scene somewhere to explain it.

5

From what I hear, the silent wife thing was much better fleshed out and more integrated in the book.

I actually liked the Lady McBeth routine, because it made the blame for Dave’s death much more widespread and interesting. It showed that it wasn’t just one lone former outlaw going crazy and reacting with excessive violence. No, it was a reaction that is in some way supported by many people in the neighborhood, and is maybe emblematic of a large part of that neighborhood’s society.

6

A deleted scene in a movie that Clint Eastwood directs? Don’t hold your breath.

Count yourself lucky if you can find an alternate take.