Seeing Clint Eastwood get passed over in the Oscar nominations for Gran Torino and watching Sean Penn take Best Actor this year, made me start thinking about Mystic River. I’ve never been a crime drama fan but I was in Greece on holiday this summer and had already read everything I brought and still had 4 or 5 days left in the holiday. Doug brought Mystic River with him and so I picked it up.
Doug is a huge Clint Eastwood fan – he has seen pretty much every Clint touched movie whether he was in it or only behind the camera, and some of that has rubbed off on me over the last 17 years. I had never seen Mystic River but I am a Sean Penn and Tim Robbins fan. I didn’t know what characters they played before I started reading, but since I knew they were in the movie, it helped me visualize the characters.
This is not a fun, uplifting story. It is very dark, sad, horrifying and it’s a great crime, mystery, drama. It didn’t take me long to get hooked, I was in it for the duration, I was fooled by quite a few of the red herrings and honestly surprised as the ending unfolded.
Speaking of Oscars...I didn’t see any of the Best Picture nominated films. So I decided I would read the books (where possible) instead: The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon (the play), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (the short story). Maybe I can finish those before next year’s Oscars.
Mystic River
Dennis Lehane
Harper Collins
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