imamaryanne

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I have this weird relationship with the book Mysteries of Pittsburgh, by Michael Chabon. It was Chabon’s first novel, written at the extremely tender age of 23. It’s my favorite Chabon novel and I love it so much, I can barely put it into words. My younger sister, after having read it years after I started pestering her to, put it succinctly. "I love a book where you can take almost any line or sentence, read it as a stand-alone line and not know if it came from poetry or prose."

That’s how Michael Chabon writes. When I read his novels, I know that Kavalier and Clay, Wonder Boys, and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union are all better works. He matured as a writer so clearly between Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys. But still. I love Mysteries of Pittsburgh. My chest actually aches while reading it sometimes. What is it? Probably part of it is imagining a carefree 23 year old writing with such abandon. So. In short...I love it, I love it, I love it.

A few years ago, D and I were in Pittsburgh visiting his Grandma. I saw in the paper that the movie Mysteries of Pittsburgh was filming there that month, and I was oh so happy. I couldn’t wait to see it! It was at Sundance last year and poorly reviewed and I was oh so sad about that. Because I felt that this novel really could have made an awesome movie. I read a little about it, and I found out that they completely removed the character of Arthur Lecomte from the story in the movie. Which is a great big pile of whatthefuckery.

Finally, the movie was released on DVD, after having spent no time in the theater. So, naturally, we rented it. This was several weeks ago, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around the awfulness. Let me say, first off that I am NOT one of those people who gets pissed when details of books I love are left out of movies. I get it; Screen and Page are two very different forms of media and what works for one might not work for the other. It’s why I can love Harry Potter in book form and in movie form.

But to change a story so completely is just mind-boggling and a complete disservice to the fans of Mysteries of Pittsburgh. Instead of a lovely book about Art Bechstein’s coming of age and falling in love with his best friend (the aforementioned Arthur Lecomte, that beautiful soul) while also dating the lovely neurotic Phlox. Art became a whining rich kid who is fucking his boss (the neurotic Phlox), while also being in love with Jane (a minor character in the novel) and at one time fucking Jane’s boyfriend (Cleveland, who was evil incarnate in the book). What???? And why is Nick Nolte playing Art’s gangster father? Why does Nick Nolte have a career?

Oh, but Nick Nolte wasn’t even the worst part. Art was played by Jon Foster (who I’ve never seen in anything else) and what a monotone BORING performance. Peter Skarsgaard gave a valaint effort in playing Cleveland, but the problem with the character is that it was too confused. I think the screenwriter wanted to blend Arthur and Cleveland in to one character, but in doing so managed to screw both characters up. So this "movie Cleveland," was neither as vulnerable as Arthur nor as evil incarnate as "book Cleveland." Mena Suvari played a very good Phlox, but I don’t think you’d know that if you hadn’t read the book. And Sienna Miller is just shit as Jane.

The worst part? We watched the extras, and Michael Chabon was supportive of this pile of cow shit. Guh.

It’s extra disappointing, because to me, Wonder Boys is one of the most fantastic movies made from a novel ever. It kept the spirit of the book, while keeping all of the important details and shedding only the most trivial. Most importantly, it included some fantastic performances by Michael Douglas, Robert Downey, Jr., Tobey Maguire and Frances McDormand.

In short: if you haven’t read Wonder Boys. Do it, then see the movie. If you haven’t read Mysteries of Pittsburgh, do it, but skip the movie.

Rant over.