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The real puzzlers of Pittsburgh: Why Jon Foster emerged from a field of 60-plus actors to star in "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" and why Michael Chabon allowed his 1988 novel to be changed so much on the way to the screen.
Rawson Marshall Thurber has had nothing but kind, loving words for the book that he sheared and shaped into a screenplay and directed here in fall 2006. He has spoken of Pittsburgh and its film crews in only the most gracious, glowing of terms, so I wish I could say I loved "Mysteries."
Or even liked it. I did not, and I've seen it twice, first in November at a turn-away showing at the Regent Square Theater and again this week.
It's beautifully shot, proves that Peter Sarsgaard and Nick Nolte can work magic with any role and makes you (almost but not quite) forget Sienna Miller's insult about the city. But Foster is too bland to hold the truncated story together, and the changes from the book prove distracting and destructive.
"Mysteries" is set in Pittsburgh in the summer of 1983. Art Bechstein (Foster), the son of a much-feared gangster (Nick Nolte), has just graduated from college with a degree in economics. He is taking a prep course for a stockbroker exam, working at a discount book store and, driven more by boredom than passion, having an affair with his boss, Phlox (Mena Suvari).
A chance encounter spins him into a dizzying social circle where he meets aspiring violinist and alcoholic beauty Jane (Miller) and a bisexual biker and small-time hood named Cleveland (Sarsgaard). As Art is attracted to one and then the other, he is sucked into the world his father has assiduously shielded him from.
- Starring: Jon Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sienna Miller
- Rating: R for strong sexuality, nudity and language
- Web site: mysteriesofpittsburgh.com
At one of their monthly dinners at LeMont, the elder Bechstein growls: "So that's what you've decided to do with your summer? Hang around thugs and thieves, greedy little morons who take money from other greedy little morons."
The summer of '83 proves liberating, revelatory, transformative and, in one case, deadly for the principals.
Pittsburghers will appreciate the hometown touches, from the reference to the Original Hot Dog Shop in Oakland to the speedy drive through the Fort Pitt Tunnel and casual views from Mount Washington and the South Side.
Thurber, in an effort to streamline the story, famously eliminated gay gadabout Arthur Lecomte and made Cleveland a sort of combo character. He also shot the famous "cloud factory" in Rankin (not a deal breaker), cut the Hillman Library location and turned Phlox into Art's lusty boss.
Sporadic use of narration just reminds us how much we miss Chabon's brilliantly descriptive and elegant text. Maybe the book was impossible to turn into a movie.
As Jane asks, after coming upon a shocking scene, "What is all this?" I'm still not sure, but it opens today only at the Manor Theater in Squirrel Hill.
