In the film’s most flamboyant role, Peter Sarsgaard’s devil-ish charisma and cold bluster is frightening. Jon Foster is superb as the conflicted Art, evincing mettle as a young man overcome with a sense of doom. It’s the players that invigorate “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” and keenly flesh-out its emotional dimensions. In short, Art consorts with all the wrong sorts, subconsciously hoping that others will force him to do what he cannot do, defy his father. He lets himself get drawn in by dangerous dalliances, sexual and social. In quiet desperation, he embarks on a last-summer of sloth, subverting his father by intentionally taking a low-level job and half-heartedly studying for his brokerage exam. He rationalizes that he has a summer to prolong the inevitable, when he is expected to take a cushy set-up job orchestrated by his father. Naturally passive, Art is also determined to find his own way.
A cum laude graduate, Art’s the prize only child of a gangster father (Nick Nolte) who demands a straight-and-narrow path for Art.
In movie-ese, ’80s college graduate Art Beckstein (Jon Foster ) faces a similar graduation dilemma that Benjamin Braddock faced in the ’60s in “The Graduate.” It’s not plastics, but, rather brokerage houses that Art is funneled toward. Its golden patina and romantic framings seem contrived at times, and upset the story’s many layers. Unfortunately, the film’s glossy sheen and artful compositions are often distracting, bracketed by seeming calendar shots for a Pennsylvania tourism office.
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