Sean (Kevin Bacon) is a detective with Boston’s homicide department.
Dave’s wife, Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden) is devoted to him, even though he can be distant. Dave (Tim Robbins) is devoted to his son, playing catch with him everyday and taking him on walks through the old neighborhood.
He’s also a convenience store owner and spent two years in jail sixteen years ago. Jimmy (Sean Penn) is a remarried widower favoring his nineteen year old daughter from his previous marriage, Katie (Emmy Rossum). Skip ahead twenty-five years and the boys are grown and have grown apart. From a minimum of words and images, we assess that young Dave was locked in a basement, sexually assaulted and escaped through the woods four days later. Apparently, nobody gave these boys the “Stranger-Danger” talk. He writes his name, then Sean, timid Dave goes last, but only gets two letters in when a man interrupts, “You boys think it’s okay to destroy municipal property?” Scared, the boys assume the man is a cop and he takes Dave away without much fuss. With no game to play, young Jimmy finds some drying cement and a stick. Set in Boston, the film begins with three boys playing street hockey and lose their last ball in the storm drain. Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River is a thriller, wrapped in a murder mystery, guided by a haunting childhood experience.
