The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

I am certain that writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber (Dodgeball) would like his adaptation of the Michael Chabon novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh to be judged on its own merits, and not on co-star Sienna Miller’s infamous “Shitsburgh” remark. Big mistake. It’s another formless, uninvolving, poorly written post-grad story of drifting, illicit love and an imposing father figure. The occasionally narrating graduate is Art Bechstein, a feckless son of a gangster (Nick Nolte) putting off his arranged stockbroker job by screwing his manager at the Book Barn (Mena Suvari) and becoming enamored with Miller and her boyfriend (Peter Sarsgaard), an impulsive, low-level criminal. You never become invested in the characters, and the story is nothing that hasn’t been done better before.