From his very first reading, director / producer Clint Eastwood knew he wanted to bring Dennis Lehane’s best-selling novel Mystic River to the screen. “I read the book and optioned it immediately,” he recalls. “It’s a riveting story with enormous potential as a film. The characters are complex, interesting and well defined.”
Eastwood, who won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for his landmark Western Unforgiven in 1993, brings a classically spare, candid approach to Mystic River. “This film is about real people trying to come to terms with who they are under very tough circumstances. It needs to be done honestly and it needs to ring true.”
Mystic River explores the interwoven history of three men, the terrible events that tainted their boyhood and shaped their futures, and the irrevocable choices they are ultimately forced to make. Individually, these characters must come to terms with their own personal demons, struggling with issues that bring an alarming momentum into the mix.
“Murder mysteries are usually only about solving the crime,” says Eastwood, “but in this case the story shows how, beyond the murder, all of the participants’ lives have been altered by the crime. One gets to see the impact a violent act has had, many years after the fact. It’s that tragic circle – all three of these men have unresolved issues in their lives. They have all been traumatized by the past. All became damaged goods.”
Childhood friends Jimmy, Dave and Sean grew up together, living and playing on the same neighborhood streets of South Boston. But when a shocking tragedy befell one of them, the boys stopped spending time together and eventually grew apart, each keeping his distance as if the others were living reminders of that devastating time. But while their lives may have led them in different directions, they were all turning away from the same painful place.
When Eastwood began considering what writer could best bring Dennis Lehane’s haunting novel to the screen, “Brian Helgeland immediately came to mind. He really liked the book and after conferring with him briefly, I said, ‘Why don’t you just dig in?’ He ripped right into it, writing the first draft in two weeks. I looked at it and felt it was a terrific interpretation of a complex book, filled with so much discussion and detail.”
Casting decisions reflected Eastwood’s sense of purpose and desire for quality without compromise, and a stellar cast was quickly assembled. “I sent the script to Sean Penn and he loved it right away,” Eastwood recounts. “Tim Robbins called, and as the word got out, other actors began calling. Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney are both terrific actresses with whom I had previously worked. This was a very pleasant experience because the actors all resonated so well together.”
Five cast members are prior Oscar nominees: Penn for Best Actor in I Am Sam and Dead Man Walking – a film that also garnered Robbins a nomination for Best Director – Fishburne for Best Actor in What’s Love Got to Do with It, Linney for Best Actress in You Can Count On Me and Marcia Gay Harden, who won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Pollock.
“I don’t think I could have found a better actor for any of the parts in this film,” says Eastwood. “Sean, Tim, Kevin, Laurence, Laura and Marcia are all simply outstanding. I had no doubts about the talent of this cast.”
In turn, the cast had no doubt that they were in extremely capable hands. “All of us had the sense that Clint’s storytelling would give the film a clear humility,” says Penn, “so our readings were done in order to make ourselves as familiar as possible with the material. In that way, whatever had to do with nuances and character choices became just a shorthand exchange with Clint and we wouldn’t have to refer back to the script. It becomes a cleaner, more decisive process because you know with each take that you can give it everything you have.”
“The key ingredient in this film is Clint Eastwood,” Robbins agrees. “Clint is a true artist in every respect. Despite his years of being at the top of his game and the legendary movies he has made, he always made us feel comfortable and valued on the set, treating us as collaborators and equals. We never got the feeling that he believed in his legend or asked us to honor it, although we did. It was a really great experience. There was never any kind of pettiness on his set; no screaming or stupid emotional displays from anybody, a very professional, adult environment. There is nothing condescending about the man or his crew and it invigorates you, making you feel like you did when you made your fist movie.”
Robbins plays the deeply troubled Dave. “Dave is one of these guys who finds a way to survive and exist despite a past filled with horrific events,” the actor muses. “Maybe what he should have done is left that neighborhood and started fresh somewhere, but he didn’t. He’s internalized his painful experience and not talked about it or dealt with it, so it has festered and festered for years. It’s not particularly fun, going to that dark place for long periods of time while you’re working, but fortunately, Clint provided such a professional and efficient environment to work in that it was a pleasure to be able to bring this character to life.”
Haunted by the devastating events of his childhood, Dave stayed in the poorer section of town, working menial jobs and eventually starting a family with his wife Celeste. When Jimmy’s 19-year-old daughter Katie is inexplicably murdered, the details of the crime slowly emerge and Celeste begins to break down under the weight of her uncertainty and dread.
Harden, who arrived in Boston early to immerse herself in the blue-collar world of Mystic River, felt a kinship with her character. “The story has an immediate, personal connection for me,” says the actress, “because Celeste has a young son, and I’m a mother with a four-year-old daughter. It also greatly appealed to me because it questions that moment in life when innocence is lost.”
While Dave was just trying to survive and get by, Jimmy followed a more turbulent route, developing into something of a criminal mastermind over the years. Running his own gang at the tender age of seventeen, he seemed untouchable. He married the most beautiful girl in the neighborhood and the two soon had a young daughter. Things might have gone on that way forever, until an associate rolled on him, ratting Jimmy out in exchange for a lighter sentence and condemning him to serve two years at Deer Island.
Tragically, his young wife was stricken with cancer while he was locked up, and when Jimmy got out he found himself a 22-year-old widower and the sole parent to a little girl who barely recognized him as her father. With 5-year-old Katie as his motivation, Jimmy determined to turn his back on his criminal past. Returning to the neighborhood to run a corner grocery, he re-married and had two other daughters. As their family continued to grow, Katie remained the light of his life. On the day she is found dead in Pen Park, that light goes out forever.
“Mystic River deals with a kind of unimaginable pain,” says Sean Penn. “I found myself drawing from the writing and the other actors. We spent a lot of time together, reading through the script and trying to find a kind of peace with the things that occur and the choices that are made. Our job was to make these impossibly painful situations dramatically understandable.”
Jimmy’s anchor throughout the tragedy is his love for his daughters and the strength of his fiercely devoted wife, whose loyalty to those closest to her knows no bounds. “Annabeth is tough; very, very tough,” says Laura Linney of her character. “She’s like a mother lion, very protective, with a huge sense of pride and entitlement. She’s always on guard – she’s got an ‘I dare you’ quality about her.”
As Jimmy was serving time, his boyhood buddy Sean aligned with the other side of the law, becoming a Massachusetts State homicide detective. Increasingly alienated from humanity by the never-ending indiscriminate cruelty he sees in the course of his investigations, and separated from his wife except for her painful, silent phone calls, Sean has come to question the meaning of his efforts.
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Clint Eastwood, Tim Robbins, Laura Linney, Marcia Gay Harden, Eli Wallach
Screenplay by: Brian Helgeland
Production Design by: Henry Bumstead
Cinematography by: Tom Stern
Film Editing by: Joel Cox
Costume Design by: Deborah Hopper
Set Decoration by: Richard C. Goddard
Music by: Clint Eastwood
MPAA Rating: R for language, violence.
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: October 8, 2003
