The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

Wow. What a terrible adaptation of a beautiful novel. Here are just a few gripes. - The screenwriter eliminated two major characters from the book. - Plot has been grotesquely altered. - Voiceovers sound as if they were directly lifted from written passages (which may read well but are not the same when spoken, especially with Chabon's writing style). - The acting is more wooden than a log cabin. (Esp. Bechstein) - This is supposed to be set in 1983??? Feels more like 2003...

To be fair I couldn't bring myself to finish watching this movie, so it's possible that it redeemed itself... (sarcasm). I truly hope that no one paid to see this, or at least anyone who read the book hoping for something decent (a la Wonder Boys). I like Chabon as a writer but he should be ASHAMED of this adaptation.

No stars.

Jon Foster, Peter Skarsgaard, and Sienna Miller love each other. This is a Jules et Jim type film where three people love each other. Nick Nolte is the gangster dad of Jon Foster. Nolte's brother who is also a gangster uses Skarsgaard for low level jobs. Skarsgaard and Foster have sex. Then Skarsgaard needs Foster's dad to get him out of trouble. His dad gives him a robbery to do but calls the cops to get him out of his son's life. I like Skarsgaard's acting the best. He reminds me of Brando. He seems to be holding back some powerful energy. Sienna Miller is interesting; she was married to Jude Law twice. I think Law fooled around with the sitter like Uma Thurman's husband. Here Miller is a cellist who gets drunk. This is a story of an unforgettable summer in Pittsburgh. I bet the book by Michael Chabon is excellent.

(2008) The Mysteries of Pittsburgh DRAMA

Co-written with the author Michael Chabon, and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber with Art Bechstein (Jon Foster) somewhat narrating his life beginning with having dinner with his gangster father, (Nick Nolte). Attempting to impress his father by getting through his studies, his personal life actually begins as soon as he is invited to a party and he becomes drawn to an inspired violinist, named Jane (Sienna Miller). Who she then draws Art into her personal life when she introduces him to her boyfriend, Cleveland (Peter Sarsgaard). It is during then Art experiences life and relationships. I did not think it was much of a movie.

MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH is a truly 2009 "coming of age" story of three young people who meet in Pittsburgh and take a journey which will change their lives forever. The cast is superb; and I found Jon Foster's voice and performance refreshing inside a seasoned cast of Nick Nolte, Sienna Miller, "American Beauty's" Mena Suvari and the incredibly talented Peter Sarsgaard. Reviews have been mixed on the film, but I thought it took off in the second act, with humor of the challenges facing the characters, and the pathos of how "love" can take a turn when you least expect it. The dialog, at times witty and with a cynical barb to it, and the location of Pittsburgh, with its hills and older homes, adds to the story. I really liked this film, and once again, the cast is delicious to look at, and watch.

I am quite a fan of novelist/screenwriter Michael Chabon. His novel "Wonder Boys" became a fantastic movie by Curtis Hanson. His masterful novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" won the Pulitzer Prize a few years back, and he had a hand in the script of "Spider Man 2", arguably the greatest comic book movie of all time.

Director Rawson Marshall Thurber has also directed wonderful comedic pieces, such as the gut-busting "Dodgeball" and the genius short film series "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker". And with a cast including Peter Saarsgard, Sienna Miller, Nick Nolte and Mena Suvari, this seems like a no-brainer.

It is. Literally.

Jon Foster stars as Art Bechstein, the son of a mobster (Nolte) who recently graduated with a degree in Economics. Jon is in a state of arrested development: he works a minimum wage job at Book Barn, has a vapid relationship with his girlfriend/boss, Phlox (Suvari), which amounts to little more than copious amounts of sex, with no plans other than to chip away at a career for which he has zero passion.

One night at a party, an ex-roommate introduces Jon to Jane (Miller), a beautiful, smart violinist. Later that night they go out for pie, and she asks Jon a question that begins to shake him from his catatonic state of existence, "I want you to tell me something that you have never told a single soul. If you do, it will make this night indelible." Jon then tells her a reoccurring dream of his in which he wanders about town looking at the faces of strangers passing him by, yet none of them look him in the eye. "I imagine it must be what death feels like," he says.

The next day Jane's wild boyfriend Cleveland (Saarsgard) kidnaps Jon from work and takes him out to a hulking abandoned steel mill, and soon Jon, Cleveland and Jane are spending every waking moment together going to punk rock concerts, doing drugs and drinking lots of alcohol. This doesn't sit well with Phlox, who pushes Jon for a more personal relationship, namely letting her meet his new friends and his father. The film then attempts to take us on Jon's journey as he shakes off the shackles imposed on him by his father, Phlox and his dead-end job as he finds freedom and expression through his relationships with Cleveland and Jane.

There is a problem having us follow Jon throughout the film: he's completely uninteresting. He has no ambitions, passions or goals. He walks through life like the invisible wraith he described to Jane the night they met. At the outset this isn't a problem. But he never gets any more interesting. He's a completely passive character. He simply follows along the bohemian Cleveland and Jane, but he never once gives us any inkling as to what he cares about or wants to to do with himself.

Consequently, the film and its supporting characters have nowhere to go and little to do other than party, have sex and get in arguments. In other words, much ado about nothing. What we have here is the shallow skin of a good movie without anything on the inside. Sweeping cinematography, ponderous voice-over with characters staring off into the distance, lots of sex scenes both straight and gay, big arguments, more angry sex, a chase scene and a tragic death... but it doesn't seem to matter. Ironically, at one point Jane, confused at a number of Jon's aimless actions, asks him, "What's going on, Jon? What is this all about?" Yes, Jon, do tell. We in the audience are dying to know, too.

The title "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" must refer to the characters themselves, because that's what they are. They are all facades, one-dimensional stand-ins for actual people. The film never lets us in. We never know what makes any of them tick. We see them do lots of things, but we don't know why. And the absence of "why" is one of the worst things a movie can have.