Mystic River

In the movie Mystic River, the character Jimmy Markum portrayed by Sean Penn is former ex/con who is running the local neighborhood store. In the film, we learn that Jimmy’s oldest daughter Katie is murdered by an unknown assailant. Throughout the film, we learn that Jimmy’s old friend Dave is considered a suspect in his daughter’s murder, and many other people believe that he has killed Jimmy’s daughter including Dave’s wife. In the end Jimmy kills Dave after he makes him confess to killing Katie, but Jimmy finds out that Dave didn’t kill his daughter instead he learns that two local neighborhood boys are the ones that killed her. After watching the film twice now, in my personal opinion, I believe that Jimmy Markum suffers from acute stress …show more content…
According to the DSM-5 that is one of the causes for acute distress disorder and the fact that Jimmy learns that his daughter is the one that the police found in the park. This had a huge impact on the movie because now Jimmy is mentally distraught, because someone he truly loves and protects is now dead, moreover after Katie’s death, we got to see a new side of Jimmy that leads him into the next sign of his acute stress disorder. Intense psychological distress or marked physiological reactions in response to external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event(s) is the third sign that shows me that Jimmy has acute stress disorder. There were a few scenes in the movie that I saw that represent those symptoms, but there is one in particular that stands out to me most. Towards the end of the film Jimmy believes that Dave has killed his daughter and wants him to confess to the crime, but Dave continues to deny the accusations that are being brought against him. Jimmy tells Dave that if he confesses to the murder he will allow Dave to live, but as soon as Dave does Jimmy kills him and dumps him into the Mystic River. That scene in my opinion was a perfect example of an intense psychological reaction to his daughter's