In the last few lines of Michael Chabon's book The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, melancholy narrator Art Bechstein looks back at his just-concluded summer and notes (don't worry, it ain't a spoiler), "The people I loved were celebrities, surrounded by rumor and fanfare; the places I sat with them, movie lots and monuments. No doubt all of this is not true remembrance but the ruinous work of nostalgia, which obliterates the past, and no doubt, as usual, I have exaggerated everything."
It's a terrific bit of writing and a passage that comes to mind repeatedly while watching Rawson Marshall Thurber's new film adaptation. Now, Art's lovers really are celebrities (Sienna Miller and Peter Sarsgaard), their hangouts not just movie lots but movie sets. And nostalgia? Why, it's something that's unavoidably invoked by this adaptation, since Thurber's script has jettisoned so much of the beloved book's plot and so many of its main characters. The result retains some of the novel's themes but little else -- enough so that the film adaptation, had it changed the names of some characters, could have gotten away with calling itself a wholly original work.
At least, to a point. Thurber's changes have made The Mysteries of Pittsburgh flatter, more generic, and more like umpteen Sundance films that have come before it. In the book, young Art is at a crossroads, and three people in his life represent a possible future: Phlox, his girlfriend, beckons Art toward tightly-wound domesticity; his gay friend Arthur embodies a tantalizing romantic path that could change Art's life; and small-time hood Cleveland reminds Art that life and death have a way of screwing up his best-laid plans. Thurber's adaptation excises Arthur entirely, demotes Phlox to a one-note supporting role, and beefs up Cleveland (newly bisexual) to serve as a substitute love interest for Art (Jon Foster). Worse, Thurber has replaced lively Phlox with Jane (Miller), a far blander creation. Where Phlox was maddening, intelligent, and exotic, Jane is merely compliant. It's the adaptation in a nutshell.
While the characters in the book delighted in language -- especially the witty Arthur, who's especially missed -- their revamped movie counterparts have little to say and even fewer places to go. Why ditch Chabon's lyrical curlicues for narration ("And that's when it happened") that was pedestrian even on The Wonder Years? And why retain the novel's bisexual themes only to cast two actors -- Foster and Sarsgaard -- that lack any sort of erotic heat together? Thurber no doubt had his reasons, but unfortunately for fans of the book, what they were remains a mystery.
Thank you SO much for hitting the nail on the head in this review!
As the moderator of the Official MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH Film Boycott, this is EXACTLY what I've been saying since October 2006.
www.myspace.com/mysteriesofpittsburgh
Posted by: Frank Anthony Polito | January 29, 2008 at 10:58 AM