Here's something else I've been wondering about, something less serious. I saw the movie 'Mystic River' recently. (Spoiler alert, for anyone who hasn't seen it, but plans to see it.) A few thoughts:
- My main question is about how, at the end of the movie, Sean knows that Jimmy killed Dave. The movie ends before Sean does anything about that murder, but Sean doesn't seem real het up about getting Jimmy for Dave's murder. It seems that if the story continued, Sean wouldn't go after Jimmy for Dave's murder. And that seems odd. Sean's a detective after all; that's what he does. And Jimmy seems distraught at killing the wrong person, although he does get over it fairly quickly.
- I'm wondering if what happened to Dave when they were young boys haunted not only Dave, but Sean and Jimmy, too. And if, on some level, Sean and Jimmy are relieved by Dave's death because it, in some way, removes the specter of that experience - including perhaps guilt at not being the one taken - from their lives. I find this loose thread to the movie very unsettling.
- Weird scene: Jimmy's wife's spiel to him when he tells her he killed the wrong person. She goes on about how she told their daughters that their father's a king, their father will do whatever he has to keep them safe, etc. She wasn't on screen very much up until then and, when she was onscreen, it didn't seem like there was so much deceit to her. That scene seemed kinda out of place and Jimmy's wife's character seemed to just pop into the forefront of the movie there at the end. Then they're done talking about Jimmy having killed the wrong guy and then they have sex, like killing the wrong guy was just an 'oops'...'sorry, Dave, my bad'.
- The two threads of the story playing out together - Sean et al with Dave and then Katie's boyfriend with his brother and the brother's friend - was interesting. I wondered if, somehow, Dave would survive. If he did, the story would almost work out too well, too neatly, too happily ever after. If he didn't (and he didn't), the story would become even more of a downer. Downer though it was, I'm glad it didn't work out 'too well'; that would've been too Hollywood.
- Sean Penn was really something here; how do people turn such intensity on and off? Marcia Gay Harden's character seemed more unhinged than necessary.
- Like 'Unforgiven', the characters don't make big changes, don't turn over new leaves, don't start fresh, aren't redeemed. People stay just the way they are: good, bad, criminal, law-abiding, trusting, deceitful, etc. I think this contributes to the lack of a Hollywood ending where the bad people get what's coming to them and the good people get their reward. Kinduva bummer storyline, people not changing for the better, just staying the same or getting worse. But that happens and, although it's depressing, maybe that's the point.
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