Somebody Else's Nimrod

Having seen it last night, I'm surprised at the vast wave of critical acclaim that Mystic River has gotten. I tend to attribute it to a still-predominantly-male critical establishment's sympathy for the choked and stunted emotional life of the traditional American blue-collar male which it depicts.

Admittedly, I tend to react to that depiction with frustration and anger rather than sympathy, but the problem with Mystic River isn't its subject. It's its tone. Mystic River is about as relentlessly grim as The Seventh Seal, but as the material is slighter, to say the least, the result is heavy and sententious rather than gloriously ruthless. The characters are scarcely allowed to breathe, so that very few of them seem alive, despite strong efforts by the actors. (Being required to shift from muttered tough-guy talk to well-shaped phrases about the cruelty and frustration of life doesn't help the male characters, either.) In some places, the cinematography is wonderfully evocative and atmospheric; in others, it lapses into jarring cliche. The score is literally one-note (or, I should say, four-note), to the point that it actually became annoying.

There's a real story in Mystic River, and real characters laboring to get out from under the oppressive hand of the direction. It wasn't a bad movie, just woefully misguided. It's painful to see such hard work and thought by all involved be so wasted.