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The characters in Mystic River make up the soul of the film. I can not rave enough about the performances. The film shows the effects that tragedies can have on peoples lives. The characters bring life to the film through the pain that they endure or have endured, through their expressions and through the links that bind them to each other. Mystic River is unsettling and intense. It proves that there are some things in life that can be too painful to overcome.

Pain turns the characters into emotional cripples. A flashback to the childhood of Sean, Dave, and Jimmy shows an event that has tainted all their lives. Jimmy and Sean are not able to escape the guilt that they feel from letting Dave get into a car with a couple of pedophiles. We are shown a way in which monsters prey on children, and we get to see a terrifying situation through a child's eyes. The adult viewer wants to scream at Dave "Run! Don't get into that car!" The event turns Dave into a fragmented shell of a man. In one scene Dave questions Jimmy, "When did you last see Dave Boyle?" Jimmy answers, "I haven't seen Dave Boyle in twenty-five years."

Sean Penn plays Jimmy, and gives a powerhouse performance, which is more than worthy of his academy award. Penn encapsulates all the rage that a father would feel over the murder of his daughter. The violent unnecessary death of a child is probably the most emotionally painful event that any parent can ever experience. Sean Penn has to dig deep within himself to expose the extreme anguish that Jimmy displays in the scene in which his daughter is found dead.

Kevin Bacon gives one of the more subdued performances in Mystic River. He plays Sean, a cop who doesn't have much of a life, since his wife left him while she was pregnant. Sean lives in the past like a lot of the other characters. There is a scene in the film, in which Sean reflects with a bottle of liquor over a picture of Dave, Jimmy, and himself as boys. During this scene Sean's wife calls on the telephone, but she doesn't say a word. It's a potent scene that demonstrates how empty and isolated his life has become. The viewer wonders why Sean went into law enforcement? There is a good chance that he wants to exorcise some of the lingering guilt he feels about Dave getting taken away by the pedophiles.

The actors expressions play a major part of capturing the intensity of their characters. The scene which finds a a young Dave getting into the car with the two pedophiles shows a child fighting against

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