There are Mysteries in Pittsburgh

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (2008)

By: Michael James Greenwald

Turns out there’s a lot going on in Pittsburgh…who knew.  Turns out, as well, I’m a little late to the party…well, everyone knew that.

On Thursday night I took a screenwriting class at Story Studio Chicago and the Chicago screenwriter and teacher, Danny Kravitz (not Lenny’s brother) mentioned he’d reviewed The Mysteries of Pittsburgh late the other night on Showtime.  I’d heard of the the best-selling book by Michael Chabon, but had never seen the film adaptation.  Boy, was I missing out.

Starring the marvelously chameleon-like Peter Sarsgaard, gorgeous and complicated Sienna Miller, and Nick Nolte playing tough like not many actors can, the movie chronicles one summer in the life of the recently graduated, Art Bechstein (played deliciously wide-eyed by Jon Foster), who has three months to do what he wants before beginning his straight-laced life at a top Pittsburgh investment house, a position his mobbed-up father (Nolte) strong-armed for him.  Bechstein gets a job as a bookstore clerk, begins banging his boss, and in one drug-fueled night out meets the catalyst who will change his life.

Coming of age stories have formulas, and this movie, and the book (which Chabon wrote as an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh and submitted as his MFA thesis at UC Irvine), I assume, though I’m currently working on Chabon’s Wonderboys and haven’t gotten to it yet, follows the formula quite closely, but somehow this is not disappointing.  I think this has to do with the richness of the characters, especially Sarsgaard’s Cleveland and Nolte’s Poppa Dick, and the beauty with which the story of a summer in the life of three people who deeply love one another is told.

I’ve often heard that great stories are told like icebergs, where the peak of the berg is easily visible above the water, but the greater portion of the thing exists below the surface of the water.  The friendship triangle between Jane, Cleveland and Art is the focal point of most of the movie, but the viewer feels, from the second Art meets Jane and when Art discovers Cleveland’s bi-sexuality, there is something more intimate lying below the water’s surface between these three.  The brilliance of Rawsom Marshall Thurber’s writing and directing, though, is found in his restraint in rushing the sexual aspect of their connection, and even though you, as a viewer, know it’s inevitable that two or all three are going to succumb at some point, watching the strength of their bond develop is so captivating, at the end of the movie you’re left with the residuals of the power of friendship more than anything.

For me, great movies leave me with a sense of hope that such magic, of love or friendship or family or community, can be found in the real world.  Sitting in my comfy chair, watching the credits of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh roll, I felt that exact feeling.