***SPOILER ALERT***

I just watched Mystic River. I thought it was great but I am confused by a couple of things.

1) At the end Jimmy and his wife (Sean Penn and Laura Linney)are talking, and she tells him how she told their daughters that their father was a good man and would do anything to keep them safe and "that could never be wrong no matter what their daddy had to do." And she refers to him as the King and he could rule the neighborhood. She was REALLY freakin' me out. What the hell was that all about? Did I miss something? She seemed reasonably normal up until that point.

2)What was the point of Sean's (Kevin Bacon) wife being gone and calling on the phone occasionally without speaking? And when she finally spoke at the end was that significant to the story in anyway or was it just a symbol of transition for Dave?

***MAJOR SPOILER***
3) The mute and his friend killed the girl. When her boyfriend figured it out, he stated that the mute had killed her so that she wouldn't leave with him (the boyfriend), thus leaving the mute alone. Then when Sean is telling Jimmy that he caught the killers, he makes up a story about them randomly stopping her on the street and things getting out of hand. Why? Was he trying to minimize the pain for Jimmy in some way. It didn't seem to fit the style of the Sean character.

***SPOILER ALERT***

I just watched Mystic River. I thought it was great but I am confused by a couple of things.

1) At the end Jimmy and his wife (Sean Penn and Laura Linney)are talking, and she tells him how she told their daughters that their father was a good man and would do anything to keep them safe and "that could never be wrong no matter what their daddy had to do." And she refers to him as the King and he could rule the neighborhood. She was REALLY freakin' me out. What the hell was that all about? Did I miss something? She seemed reasonably normal up until that point.

I've never read the book, so I'll only comment on what I saw, and how I interpreted it. In this bit, you see Sean Penn with a not quite dazed, but very . . . "I'm listeniiiiinnnng" look on his face. He's a power unto himself, definitely, but his wife holds power over him. Like a higher kind of control, very subliminal. Not sinister really, and not creepy--just the power behind the throne but the king don't know it type of thing.

2)What was the point of Sean's (Kevin Bacon) wife being gone and calling on the phone occasionally without speaking? And when she finally spoke at the end was that significant to the story in anyway or was it just a symbol of transition for Dave?

To me, that was showing that Bacon was the only one of the three kids that *truly* ended up getting out of "the car", escaping the past. He doesn't have the experiences, then the murder, then, well, death dragging him down like Robbins. He doesn't have the guilt of an innocent man's murder dragging him down like Penn. The world seems to have cut him a break. Not so sure.

***MAJOR SPOILER***
3) The mute and his friend killed the girl. When her boyfriend figured it out, he stated that the mute had killed her so that she wouldn't leave with him (the boyfriend), thus leaving the mute alone. Then when Sean is telling Jimmy that he caught the killers, he makes up a story about them randomly stopping her on the street and things getting out of hand. Why? Was he trying to minimize the pain for Jimmy in some way. It didn't seem to fit the style of the Sean character.

He probably was making it random so that Jimmy wouldn't retaliate. If he made it sound like some random killing, Jimmy would have little reason to want revenge; Jimmy seemed like that kind of guy. You know--he wants an eye for an eye when he's been wronged, but something like a random killing? It's almost like a horrible accident of fate.