Mystic River vs A Simple Plan

Early on in Mystic River, three boys—Sean, Jimmy and Dave—are playing hockey outside in their Boston neighborhood. The ball rolls down the gutter, and left to their own devices, the boys decide instead to carve their names into some fresh cement. A plain-clothes police officer arrives, scolds the boys, and because Dave lives on a different block, takes him into the unmarked patrol car. Dave is gone for days, his name unfinished on the sidewalk. Years later, Sean, Jimmy and Dave are grown up and played by Kevin Bacon, Sean Penn and Tim Robbins, respectively. They’re no longer friends, despite living in the same area. Sean is a cop now, and Jimmy, after years as a criminal, has settled into domestic life, owning the corner store and living with his wife and daughters. Dave has grown, kind of like his name on the sidewalk, only about half way into adulthood. He’s married and has a kid, but is quiet and reserved, shuffling down the sidewalk with his head hanging. He’s a good man, basically, but obviously scarred and paranoid. When he takes his son out to play catch, they play right by the house and stand just far enough apart to throw the ball.  His wife Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden) is sort of a wreck too, treating her family as if she has two sons.

Things are different, though not necessarily better, with Sean. His wife has recently left him, despite being pregnant—we don’t know immediately if it’s his or not—and calls him constantly only to sit there silently. Sean’s partner (Laurence Fishburne) encourages him to date, but he’s hopeful enough that the next call might involve actual speaking that he’s hesitant to start dating anyone new.

The most mature and healthy of the three seems to be Jimmy. He looks like a tough customer, with his tatts and slicked hair, but he dotes on his oldest daughter, Katie, and tends to his store with a watchful eye. He has more daughters at home, by his second wife Annabeth (Laura Linney), but Katie is obviously his favorite. At one point, Annabeth feels the need to remind him that he has other daughters, so apparently this has been a problem in the past.

Katie has a secret boyfriend, a nice kid named Brendan who cares for his mute brother. They have to keep their relationship secret because, for an as-yet unmentioned reason, Jimmy hates Brendan and his family. They have plans, but have to keep them top secret, for fear of Jimmy’s anger.

That night, Katie goes out with friends and never comes back. Dave goes home to Celeste, drunk and covered in blood. He has a story about a mugger that he might have killed. Celeste cleans him up and studies the paper the next morning. She won’t find any dead muggers.

The next day, Katie’s body is found, by Sean and his partner, and Mystic River takes on another shade. Besides already being a dark drama about repressed childhood abuse, a study in lost friendships, a forbidden love story, and a slice of life in Boston, it’s now also a crime story. Dozens of other movies would have made this the focus. Film a glorified Law and Order episode and make the story about the cops and their journey through the plot of a thriller. Luckily, Mystic River was directed by Clint Eastwood, who probably feels like he’s seen enough movies about cops and their journey through the plot of a thriller. He’s not the only one.

Mystic River is dense with characters and pays close attention to each of their storylines. Kevin Bacon’s Sean is essentially a supporting character, but he’s given more layers to his backstory that the lead in most movies. He’s great, by the way. Kevin Bacon has the least showy of any role in Mystic River, and never loses his integrity, using moments of silence (especially those on the phone with his red-lipped wife) to show the frustration and anger he feels about his relationship and this difficult new case he’s taken on.

As Dave, Tim Robbins gives a performance I haven’t seen before. He’s so specific in his sadness that he transcends being just an obvious suspect (He saw Katie on the night of her murder and Fishburne considers him the only option). He drops all the necessary clues that a movie suspect should drop, but also makes us understand how a guy like Dave could wind up killing someone, and how he might feel like the universe owed him one. And besides, how did he get so bloody, anyway? If he didn’t kill Katie, is the mugger story true? And if not…how did he get so bloody, anyway? He stays up late, and at one point is watching a monster movie and explains to Celeste what it’s like to be a vampire. It’s no wonder she thinks he did it. As Celeste, Maria Gay Harden should have had the most annoying character. But again and again I found myself completely taken by her story. She trembles with every step, always on the verge of tears, her words falling out of her mouth in short bursts, like someone who knows they should be whispering but can’t quite manage it. At the end of Mystic River, Celeste has a moment alone on the sidewalk where, before our eyes, she pieces the story together and instantly becomes the female version of Dave, shuffling down the sidewalk, her eyes darting around in paranoia.

Mystic River, of course, stars Sean Penn, and it’s basically his movie. He’s pretty brilliant, as he often is, and way more subtle than he has to be. Besides the moment when he first finds out his daughter is dead, Penn plays down many of his scenes, allowing us to get into his character’s head a little, to see that this once-dangerous man is maybe more than just a sad local shop owner. He’s got two shifty friends named the Savage brothers, who police the neighborhood for him, and a criminal record that gets longer anytime anyone mentions it. When Jimmy and his friends start piecing the case together, you might think the clues they find will never end up where they do, but then they do, and well, I don’t think this was Jimmy’s first trip down to the river. As the movie went on, I kept wondering why Laura Linney was even in it. Her part isn’t that substantial, and she isn’t asked to do much more than look sad and drink coffee. At the end, though, she has a scene of Lady Macbeth proportions, where she shows Jimmy, and us, how much she knows, and what her expectations are, and I thought “So that’s why she’s in this movie.”

Mystic River, though, despite its depth and originality, is still a crime thriller, and has certain responsibilities. When the crime is solved, it’s done so in a way we’ve seen in movies before, and that’s fine, if a little underwhelming. What’s unexpected, is that Mystic River actually has two endings, and they play simultaneously, cutting from one to the other. The results of both are inevitable, and in one case, fairly horrific. Clint Eastwood has directed 24 movies; of which I’ve seen, I dunno, several. In Mystic River, he plays with the human relationships in a natural way; I liked that the boys didn’t grow up to be friends, or even acquaintances, as is often the case. I also liked the way the violence was kept mostly off screen. There’s a scene near the end when a character is punched and it felt so real and violent, partly because of the technique, but mostly because, in a film with at least three killings, that punch was the first act of violence we were shown. With Mystic River, Clint Eastwood does that several times, playing down what seems harsh, and then showing us the little things that truly are.

Mystic River made me feel dirty. It made me feel like I had taken part in some horrible conspiracy and that I too would soon be caught and punished. I hadn’t felt this way after a movie since I saw A Simple Plan.

A Simple Plan was directed—pre-Spider-man—by Sam Raimi, and is the most subtle and moving movie of his career. It stars Bill Paxton as Hank, a man who works in a Minnesota feed mill. His wife (Bridget Fonda) is going to have a baby soon, and despite their comfortable home, they could use some money. His brother Jacob (Billy Bob Thorton) is sort of an abandoned adult, living in a shack, and dreaming of owning the family farm. He’s older than Hank, but could just as easily be years younger. He talks about wanting to date a pretty girl, but lacks social skills and common sense. He’s a good man though, and is more self-aware than he’s given credit for. He’s friends with Lou, a drunk and a slob who is not concerned with concepts like “designated driver” or “toothbrush”.

One day the men happen upon a crashed airplane, out in the middle of the forest. The pilot is dead, and inside is a duffle bag containing four million dollars. Hank is suspicious and doubtful at first, but the other two men are going to split it with or without him, and he does have that baby on the way…

They decide to split the money, but only after enough time has passed that they can be certain no one is looking for it and that they aren’t suspected of taking it. After all, it’s probably drug money, right? They’re like Robin Hood, you know, minus the part where you don’t keep the money yourself.

At first, Hank’s nervous, and his wife feels the same way. He should give the money back. It’s too risky, and it’s dishonest. And then, in the middle of the night, she wakes up with an idea. He should take back some of the money. That way, whoever comes looking for it will find it, and might not suspect that a robbery has taken place. Hey, that’s pretty smart there, Bridge. Too bad you don’t approve.

Hank has to keep everyone in line. He’s by far the smartest of the group, and by far the best at handling the money. His wife is becoming increasingly greedy, and Lou has decided he wants his cut of the money now. And Jacob…well, Jacob, despite being really nice and vulnerable and honest, just isn’t all that bright. He almost ruins everything over and over, but he’s just so anxious to start his new life, that, well, who could blame him?  Soon, as it must, tragedy strikes, and the money has driven the brothers to violence. At one point, Jacob, under a blanket of regret and guilt (and an actual blanket, if I remember correctly) confesses that he feels evil. We get the idea that maybe this has nothing to do with the money.

Throughout, Raimi keeps the movie moving at a slow, steady pace, revealing just as much information as the characters have been given, and framing each moment of striking scenes from nature, with crows and foxes living on endless hills of white snow.

A Simple Plan is an amazing movie. Each of the principle performances is right on. Bridget Fonda’s role could have been shrill, but she plays everything straight, making her shifts in character all the more credible. Likewise, Thorton plays a character that could have been clichéd, but he keeps Jacob as real as possible, given the circumstances. He doesn’t use a funny voice or walk or any of the ticks usually associated with this sort of performance.

In the end, A Simple Plan, like Mystic River, must contend with its role as a thriller. The crime and the mystery must come to a conclusion, and certain plot lines have to be attended to. Hank is given a couple options, neither good, and although he knows what he has to do, I’m taken by surprise every time it happens. At one point, Jacob says “I wish we’d never found that money.” By its shocking conclusion, you might just wish the same thing.

Mystic River: A-

A Simple Plan: A