Mystic River

(On the off chance that anyone ever comes across this and hasn't seen the film and wants to see the film, it's probably going to spoil it for you. Then again, Jill says that everytime I talk about a movie I spoil it. ho hum.)

The film begins with a familiar plot device that seems to plod along throughout the film and is almost a distraction to the story. Robbins' character, Dave, is obviously troubled, having flashbacks of when he was abducted and abused as a child. The film wants us to understand this it is just unclear why. The only thing we know is that we can't trust him, that we should suspect him of something and, most likely, we should suspect him of killing his old friend Jimmy's daughter. We don't really understand why he would do it, but, hey, he's a fucked up guy: why not him?

The rest of the film is a well scripted drama with characters all dealing with their own kind of sadness, a dance where we can see the way they unfold in new ways through their interactions. A sign of a good scriptwriter who knows the most important thing is to have more depth to a character than the script will ever use. It wasn't nearly as depressing to watch as I thought it would be simply because, despite the deep anguish you see Sean Penn's character in, the methodical way in which he goes about finding is daughter's murderer gives it an edge. To some viewers, this edge may be very familiar--and even comforting: it is the edge we are told it is good to have when a loved one is wronged. It is the edge that comes naturally to the vigilante, the man who takes matters into his own hands when the police can't be trusted, well respected in his community because he is a man of action. He is, in a word, the prototypical Clint Eastwood hero: the cowboy, the rebel cop, the ubermensche who does what needs to be done: when he tells the corpse of his daughter that he will kill the person who did this, you still aren't completely sure how to read it, but you ultimately accept at least the sentiment and don't think it would be all that bad if he did do the dirty work.

And then there is the police officer, in this case, Kevin Bacon, who seems also to be the prototypical Example of the Establishment. He has left the old neighborhood, forgotten the rules, and seems to drag his feet when it means his old friend might be the one to end up guilty. His partner says as much and his response each time seems so defensive that you have to wonder if he is overcompensating for being secretly soft on crime. Though you see him doing the work to find this killer--much more so than the goons that Penn has running around--you are meant to wonder if he is really up to the task.

In the middle of this, of course, are the women, supporting characters at best for most of the film (though I think it could be argued they provide the starkest poles of the ambiguity the film ends with). Linney, as Penn's wife, has very few scenes where she says more than two words: in the first, she seems naggy, not all that deep, another prototypical character: she's that kind of wife. Gay Hardin is much more complex. She has a moral and ethical quandry that is central to the film and, for the most part, you think you know what she should do: she should do the right thing and tell someone that she believes her husband killed Penn's daughter. I had my doubts about whether she should have told Penn, but at the moment, you're sure she should tell someone. And it seems like the film wants you to understand, at that moment, that Penn is better equipped to handle the problem than Bacon. Bacon has the problem of red tape, of getting the right evidence to nail Robbins even if he did believe it: Penn has no such limits on his ability to dispense justice. It is, again, a theme that runs through many other Eastwood films.

But then there is the problem of the gun. The gun belongs to the father of Penn's daughter's boyfriend. Katie and (whatever his name is) planned on running away together and getting married. And, from the one scene we have with them, there is little doubt that is the case. The gun doesn't really make sense and I found myself trying to figure out how Tim Robbins ended up with the this other guy's gun.

And, of course, this is where the Eastwood legacy gets overturned a bit. First off, the goons have come up with little of their own information. They have basically followed in the footsteps of the cops who "for once are doing their job" and have pieced together the case against Robbins. At this moment we have little doubt ourselves that he did it and though there is a bit of bourgeois discomfort with these thugs taking care of business, it must be done for the movie to close. But this time, the thugs are wrong. They have found some information--information they didn't like, but believed anyway (he's a fucked up guy: why not him?) and began to take action. The Establishment, could have been trusted, in this case, and one less person would have been dead.

All of this seems to revolt against the Eastwood doctrine which says that institutional, social order can't be trusted to do what men alone can do better. Penn has killed the wrong man and as he did so, justice was being peacefully meted out across town, his daughter's killers safe behind bars. If the film had ended here, I would begin to wonder what to make of this seeming transformation. Are we really to believe that there are time when men can be too blinded by what they want to see that it helps to have some sort of objective process, with proper channels, checks and balances, by which we should work?

When Penn kills Robbins, he isn't doing it because he thinks Robbins has killed his daughter. On a certain level he knows that there is room for doubt. It is a forced forced confession. Penn has put into motion the wheels of vigilante justice and can't stop them. The thugs who are also convinced that Robbins did it will not easily let the evening end with him alive. Penn forces a confession: Robbins complys, but can't tell him the thing he really wants to know. Robbins can't tell Penn why he killed his daughter because he didn't do it, so instead he tells him about what he was thinking when he saw Katie in the bar. He probably truthfully did have a feeling of envy about the youthfulness she and her friends were enjoying. By this time we know he didn't do it; we know that Penn and his street justice are "wrong," that they've got the wrong guy. But we also remember why we tought he did it in the first place so when he begins talking to Penn about the way things might be different if he hadn't been the one in the car--something we know Penn has thought about because he mentions it earlier in the film. When Penn kills him he does it because, hey, he's fucked up: why not him? but, more importantly, because Robbins represents a source of guilt Penn would be better off without. So Robbins is dead, unjustly.

Robbins, for his part, is also being punished for taking the law into his own hands. He has a much better excuse, but certainly not one that would hold up in court. This desparation which makes it impossible for him to confess is not a small part of the plot--and is, perhaps an underlying reinstatement of the Eastwood ethos: Robbins as an unlikely Dirty Harry, taking care of a child molester that had been out of jail three time before. yet he doesn't believe either system, the street or the establishment, would be willing to understand this predicament. Granted he's a fucked up guy, but still he's right, right?

The last scenes of the film increase this ambiguity even more and the characters are shown in their true colors in the end. Bacon, though he seems to be a decent cop through most of the movie, operates with the sort of realpolitik we've come to expect of law enforcement: yeah he knows that Penn murdered Robbins but neither the street nor the establishment would help him prove it. He is happy that his wife has returned and, perhaps, also relieved that the guilt of Robbins is gone. The system is broken, but it isn't just the one in the Police Station. Power, restrictions, assumptions all come into play whenever people begin handing down judgements and punishments, whether in a courtroom or on a riverbank behind the local bar. Penn is just another part of this system. Though Bacon and his partner (Fishburne) did solve the case, the success is sullied by his actions after the case is closed. He makes no move to even attempt to hold Penn accountable and shows no remorse when Gay Hardin walks down the street, looking for some justice of her own.

This interpretation, ambigous as it is, certainly seems to redeem all the fascist, cowboy tendencies of earlier epics. The subtleties and the simple fact that it was difficult to have any idea who actually committed the crime, that the viewer was shaken by their inability to have shown the true culprit, make the riding off into the sunset of the cowboy an untenable ending. So instead there is a stalemate, a face off between Bacon and Penn where both of them concede that nothing will be done about Robbins death. If it was only up to the men, the film seems to end with this realpolitik as its final chord. But Laura Linney and Marsha gay Hardin simultaneously destabilize these positions and, in an even more subtle way, reinstate the Eastwood doctrine in a new, feminized way.

Linney's last scene is the only place that we get to see who she is and her reading of events is ultimately the last of the film. She basically tells Penn that it doesn't matter if he was right or wrong, it was the thought behind the action, the fact that he would be willing to kill on behalf of his family, that was important. This, in itself, is enough to wrap things neatly into a new package. True, it could be said to challenge some assumptions about women being the keepers of the moral flame. When Penn tells her he's killed, we expect her to act like Gay Hardin does earlier: with supportive, sympathetic horror. But instead, she simply brushes it aside, saying that he killed for a noble cause even if it ended up being a bit overzealous. this is, of course, that same eastwood fascism, repackaged for the era of the "fuck for freedom" movement and the drawing of the statue of liberty, draped in a flag, holding a baby and a gun saying "nothing should get in the way of a mother and her children." It is a new kind of law that says we all must join together to combat evil wherever it may be--and even if we sometimes kill the wrong guy at the time, he was fucked up: why not him? and, more importantly, you have proven yourself to be a dependable defener of your family, and that, Linney says, is all that matters.

This would be enough to make the final moments of the film seem more like a traditional Eastwood ending. But there is more. Within this little speech, Linney firmly places the blame for Penn's misunderstanding on the person who gave him this "intellegence:" "why would someone say that about her husband?" With disdain and disbelief, Linney makes us all feel better about having believed that Robbins was a murderer because, deep down, Gay Hardin wasn't loyal, she didn't stand by her man, and she made all of us doubt his innocence. She was the weakest person in the story and, though she may have told us what we wanted to hear at the time, it's ultimately her own fault for not having faith in her man. All of this goes a long way to making the final moments, when she tearfully wanders through the crowd of the parade, looking for a consoling glance from the people who loved her days ago, almost justified. Even her own son won't look at her and, as the camera pans around and lands on her from time to time, it asks us if we really feel sorry for her. Had she been loyal and never questioned the authority of her husband, she wouldn't be in this mess. In that regard, for all its hearfelt questioning and seemingly deep moral inquiry, and, most importantly, its ambiguity about the best way to get justice, it seems to be quite conservative in its final notes.