The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

I read Michael Chabon's novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh a long time ago, so long ago that I remember practically nothing about it, except that there was a character named Phlox and it had the earnestness of a first novel. It has taken a long time for it to come to the screen, and I have to say that time was wasted, for the result is as dreary a motion picture as I have seen in a while.

Adapted and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, the script is a textbook example of how not to write a screenplay. It starts with an overuse of voice-over narration by our hero, a kid just out of college played by Jon Foster. He tells us everything, even that he was an economics major (which is useless information) and then, right before he meets the woman he would fall in love with, he says, "And then it happened." Thurber should be drummed out of the business just for that unforgivable bit of wretchedness.

Foster is the son of a local gangster (Nick Nolte) and he's planning on becoming a stockbroker, but his heart isn't in it. He has a menial job in a bookstore and out of boredom enters a sexual relationship with the aforementioned Phlox (Mena Suvari), who turns out to have a screw loose. At a party he meets a charismatic young woman (Sienna Miller) who is in a relationship with a bisexual petty thief (Peter Sarsgaard). The three of them end up in bosom friends, and Foster falls in love with both of them.

At almost every step of the way, the characters in this film behave not out of any impetus from their characters, but because the script dictates their actions. We see no evidence as to why Foster would become so enamored of Miller and Sarsgaard (other than Miller's physical attributes), nor they of him. Foster, in particular, is a bad choice for the lead character. He's a very bland actor, and the script doesn't help by having him often say things like, "I don't know," or "What?" By the end of the film you will have wanted to slap him silly several times.

Also, this film is set in Pittsburgh, the name of the city is in the title, yet we get no sense of place. Other than an abandoned steel mill, there are no settings in the film that feel like Pittsburgh, and it could have been set anywhere.

About the only thing good to say about this film is that the cinematography by Michael Barrett is quite good. It turns out that the mystery of Pittsburgh is how anyone thought this script was good enough to make into a feature film.