Mystic River is a
film in which every
character could use some kind of psychotherapy. Jimmy Markham has just lost his
daughter and is ready to blame anyone, while his
wife believes that everything he does is right, even if what he does is
murder. Sean is a policeman who is very good and unbiased in his job, but his personal life is a wreck. Sean’s wife has left him and the only reason the film gives to the viewer as to why she left him was because he admittedly, “pushed her away.” Dave perhaps is initially in need of the most help due to his abduction at the hands of two “vampires” (child molesters). Dave’s relationship with his wife and son is very stable until Dave’s wife starts having her doubts about her husband’s involvement in the murder of the Markham girl. Everyone in this tragic story has more than just one psychological flaw and what makes them so easy to interpret and find is the fact that the story and the characters involved are all very realistic
Jimmy Markham has made quite a name for himself in his small Boston community where he owns his own convenience store and is seen as the patriarch of the section of town in which he resides. Markham is very successful, but he is an ex-con who killed a partner of his twenty years prior, and doesn’t mind blaming and ultimately killing an old friend (Dave) for something he didn’t do, that being the murder of Markham’s daughter.
The main psychological problem that Markham’s character is given is transference. Jimmy is ultimately
responsible for
getting in trouble with the law, and while he isn’t responsible for the death of his daughter, neither is Dave, but that doesn’t stop Jimmy from pinning his pain upon someone else and making them pay. James Markham is a man of power in his small suburb, but he is almost pure id when it comes to dealing with pain. Instead of acting responsibly Markham goes for a more pleasurable option by killing one who “may” be responsible for his daughter’s death, instead of actually waiting for police and getting vengeance in court.
While Markham’s character is bad enough, it is his wife who is even worse as a person. Delusions of grandeur and her desire for fantasy produce exactly what she is. Mrs. Markham is a kind vine of comfort for Jimmy and her children, but in the end of the film she is shown as a woman thirsting for power, a woman who sits beside her “king” and self-righteously believes that all he has ever done is dignified despite the circumstances.
More summaries about the Psychoanalysis of Mystic River