Review of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (2008) by Nick D — 16 Aug 2009

I read the book back when it first came out and saw that Chabon was a real voice, but for the life of me I don't remember much about the story, just the tone, the sleepwalky summer between college and life, and the sexual ambiguity of the love triangle.

Everybody in the cast was quite believable, but the unfolding of the story seemed a bit forced, never quite airborne. Direction? Certainly. And probably the lead, Jon Foster, a sort of slight version of Ed Byrnes, in fact, I kept thinking, is this a younger, much younger brother? Sarsgaard and Miller are solid.

Don't break your neck to see this, unless you, like me, have a thing for literary sources and a compulsion to see every movie made of every book you've ever read. It's a curse. Really.