Mystic River

I sat down this afternoon when Madison was asleep to watch a movie. Morgan was out playing and Amy was at work. I was bored. I could have logged onto my National University class and done my stupid responses to other people's posts, but I didn't feel like it (I still gotta do it by midnight though).

I have had the DVD for Mystic River for a week or so. I kept putting it off because I thought it was some "acting" movie. You know the ones. The ones that everyone says was acted well but nobody ever says anything about the plot. Acting is secondary, if you ask me. A good movie will be helped by good acting, and most good movies are still pretty good even with bad acting. But bad movies are still bad, even with good acting.

So I popped in Mystic River. I didn't even know what it was about before it began. I was hooked from the start.

This movie was never dumb. All the characters acted in the way they were supposed to at all times. And it looked like real life, in every way. Every pretense flowed into the next and was thought-provoking and rich with meaning. Yet it did not tell you what to feel. The clues and motives naturally allowed your mind to fill it in. This movie was simple yet never seemed to think the audience a dummy. Yeah, and the acting was good. All the top stars turned in great performances.

Clint Eastwood did a marvelous job too. This movie could have been screwed up. This movie could have just been some B movie flop, even with the grade A talent. It seemed to me that Eastwood could have directed my ninth graders into a fine movie with this one. So this is a case where good acting helped an already good movie.

As I sit here staring at the screen, I want to say more about it. But I can't. I honestly see now why I didn't know what the movie was about: no one wanted to spoil it for me. I want to talk about the way the twisting plot twisted me, but that would give too much away.

A+ film.