Mystified

I saw Clint Eastwood's new film, Mystic River, with D.C. last week. I have not had the chance to chat with him about his views on the film, but I have to admit I am a bit mystified about the critical reception it has been receiving.

I admired Eastwood's command of a particular genre: the thriller/mystery elements of a police procedural. However, his combination of this with a study of the sub-culture affected by the crime did not seem authentic. In fact, there seems to be a certain layer of condescension throughout the film. The portrayal of the rough-and-tumble, working-class Irish community that is connected to some type of organized crime background included these elements:

1. A "naturalist" presentation of damaged, not too bright individuals struggling to respond to a tragedy.
2. A "classic" presentation of a Tragedy where the protagonist unwittingly ends up damning himself.

However, these get sullied by:

3. A misogynist and woefully underdeveloped approach to the women in the film.
4. A tone that shifts from an observational portrayal of damaged characters to a romanticized attitude about the toils of the urban, Irish working class.

I did not think it was a good movie and I definitely have no clue what David Denby of The New Yorker was smoking when he called it "a masterpiece."

Though I tend to dislike Armond White's tone and about 90% of his judgments, I think he has come closest to expressing my view on the film:

"Mystic River’s sentimentality gets most deplorable when it becomes grandiose about the working- and criminal class. 'That’s what I’ve done. I can’t undo it,' Jimmy intones after he whacks an innocent man. And his wife Annabeth (Laura Linney) also gets a crazy speech, 'Everyone is weak, everyone but us. We could rule this town... Nothing you do can ever be wrong.' But this female fealty is wrong. She’s Lady Macbeth with no consequence. Eastwood and Helgeland’s suggestion that this is low-life truth dangerously imputes nobility to unhealthy machismo—another middle-class myth about the lower classes."