The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh

When a young man graduates from college in England, it is tradition to send them to “The Continent” for a year abroad to study other cultures and expand their horizons. Apparently in America the tradition is to get a minimum wage job, go to a bunch of parties, have meaningless sex, and summon enough courage to stand up to your parents and say, “I don’t want to go into the career I studied four years for, I want to….”, fill in the blank.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is the story of a young man who has just graduated from college and while participating in a congratulatory steak dinner with his father, he notices that the FBI have them under surveillance. The young man’s father is a gangster, and Art doesn’t want anything to do with that life. He has poured himself into his studies and has done well. But, in the fall, his father has set up a job for him in “the Company”, so, for now, he just wants to get through this dinner, and spend the summer in a mindless job with no responsibilities, while studying for his licensing exams.

What I found the most interesting about this film is how differently my friend and I reacted to it. I liked the film. I liked the way the director used sound during the dream sequences that book-ended the beginning and end of the movie. It was interesting to me that the film started off in a narrative form until the main character Art meets Jane, and then the structure of the film suddenly changes. I appreciated the fact that the characters were familiar, yet very different. I also liked that I was never really sure where the film was going, that it was constantly surprising me.

My friend, on the other hand, didn’t like the film at all. He didn’t care about the characters. He said that they didn’t do anything, and that he was bored and couldn’t wait for the film end. It made me wonder if we had watched the same film. We both loved Nick Noltle, who does a wonderful job playing the gangster father, murderously scary, but showing a father’s love through the chinks in his armor. My friend liked Sienna Miller, the love interest, who he thought was beautiful and intriguing. He liked the juxtaposition of her cultured upbringing and the relationship with her bad-boy boyfriend. I liked Peter Sarsgaard, also the love interest, who I thought was charismatic while playing an atypical thug. He was all about living in the moment and taking love where you could find it. I was also impressed with Jon Foster, an actor I’m not that familiar with. He had the strength and maturity of a man who was raised by a single father in the world of organized crime. Yet, he still had the hurt and sensitivity of a child who grew up without a mother. I don’t think this film would have worked without his delicate performance.

Since the movie got such extreme reactions from two people who usually agree, I think I’m going to have to give this movie a mixed review. I’m going to recommend that you rent it. That way, if you like it, like me, you can enjoy it in solitude and linger over the character study. If you don’t like it, like my friend, you can send it back to Netflix, and watch the next film in your queue. But, at least give it a chance. You’ll really want to see Nick Nolte’s performance, he is very good in this role.

Rating: Rent It Has performances worth seeing