The ancient Greeks gave us myths – those fanciful, marvelous stories that, through the prism of fantasy, allow us to look at our lives in a different way. Myths are fictions, yes, but fictions that helped the Greeks (and help us today) ease and explain reality’s inconsistencies and unexplainable sorrows. Talented literary alchemists like Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus turned those myths into plays…and in doing so, turned hard, cold reality into gripping, fierce drama. And an enduring art form was born.

Is it any wonder that the coldest of those cold, harsh realities – death – ended up as the foundation upon which the greatest Greek tragedies were built? Wars, pestilences, matricide, patricide, fratricide, and plain old homicide – these are the awful realities hiding behind the myths, the violent circumlocutions that made drama dramatic.

A few centuries separate Clint Eastwood from the ancient Greek masters, but watching his latest directorial effort, MYSTIC RIVER, one can imagine him taking a very comfortable seat among them at an otherworldly gathering of master tragedians. For although his setting is working-class Boston and the time is modern-day, Eastwood’s searing glimpse into the tenuous bonds of friendship spirals onto itself in rippling circles of pain, remorse, and yes, tragedy. If Euripides had ever known Catholic guilt, he might have written something quite similar. MYSTIC RIVER is an eloquent, moving, and articulate tragedy for our times.

In Boston, where we lay our scene, MYSTIC RIVER follows three young kids who share a life-changing moment when one of them is abducted by child molesters. Although the youngster escapes, the emotional scars lay upon the trio for life. As they grow up, distance comes between them: Jimmy (Sean Penn) is a reformed ex-con with a family running a convenience store in the old neighborhood, while Sean (Kevin Bacon) has become a workaholic homicide detective whose wife recently left him. The boy who was abducted, Dave (Tim Robbins), has never truly recovered even as an adult, and is struggling to connect to his own young son.

The first of the many catastrophes that befall these men comes when Jimmy’s eldest daughter is found dead, apparently the victim of a murder. As Sean and his partner Whitey (Laurence Fishburne) investigate, Jimmy wrestles with his loss, while Dave struggles against his memories of the past. Without giving the plot away, the stage is set for a scene worthy of Sophocles: friend against friend, family against family, a conclusion with no winners and more than enough sorrow to go around.

Armed with a peerless cast and a well-delineated script by Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential) that would have made Aeschylus proud, director Clint Eastwood exhibits a mastery that few modern filmmakers can claim, a calm assurance that shows in every frame. Graceful camera work, pitch-perfect performances, and a steady attention to the narrative may seem obvious components for cinematic success…but if it were easy, every filmmaker would do it, and a cursory glance at the megaplex marquee will tell you they don’t. Balancing story and technique is a precarious tightrope act, and Eastwood deserves much praise for making it look easy. No, not easy…effortless.

The actors seem to thrive under Eastwood’s commanding surety. Sean Penn, clearly reveling in the formidable inner turmoil of Jimmy, swings passionately between steel-eyed venom and delicate heartbreak. MYSTIC RIVER is easily Penn’s best work since 1997’s She’s So Lovely. Also in top form is Kevin Bacon, whose portrayal of quiet pain is a study in torment. Lonely and broken, he sets his jaw as if it were an invisible shield, protection against childhood memories, career stress, and his decimated marriage. Laura Linney gives what just may be the best performance of her noteworthy career as Penn’s wife, delivering an 11th-hour scene that rips the roof off of the emotional core of the film. Slightly less convincing are Tim Robbins, whose portrayal of Dave occasionally seems a bit too naïve for a survivor of such caustic violence, and Marcia Gay Harden, who makes Dave’s fair-weather wife Celeste less than sympathetic.

It’s an inescapable fact that even the best tragedy is still a downer, and audiences confronted by current international conflicts may feel they have enough agita in their lives already. But like Oedipus Rex, or Antigone, or Agammemnon, MYSTIC RIVER is a tragedy that is timeless. It uses sadness to illuminate the powerful truths we need reinforced from time to time: the importance of family, the inescapability of the past, the promise of a better tomorrow. As the sunrise breaks over the river in question at the end of MYSTIC RIVER, a parade, complete with marching band, passes by. Life is about embracing the good and the bad, and even a master tragedian like Eastwood knows that.

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