38
Metascore
15 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80The Hollywood ReporterThe Hollywood ReporterIn the film's most flamboyant role, Peter Sarsgaard's devil-ish charisma and cold bluster is frightening.
- 70VarietyDennis HarveyVarietyDennis HarveyThe full warmth and idiosyncrasy of Chabon's original is missed in an adaptation that feels more impersonally observed. But Lawson's pic, (with the director making a left turn from prior feature "Dodgeball," which he says was a money gig undertaken to hasten this dream project) is entertaining and involving enough on its own terms.
- 60Film ThreatFilm ThreatDisappointed fans of Michael Chabon will have to watch "Wonder Boys" for solace, for The Mysteries of Pittsburgh boasts only one core mystery: how one can take such promising material and render it completely unmemorable?
- 50Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe movie is all the more artificial because it has been made with great, almost painful, earnestness.
- 42The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsThe A.V. ClubKeith PhippsOnly Sarsgaard shows a pulse, creating a self-destructive, omnisexual rogue who, for all his faults, would probably be great company. The same can't be said for the film around him.
- 40New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierNew York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierMarries an unengaging love triangle to a flat visual style, nearly squashing the one good thing in it -- a scruffy, slouching performance from Peter Sarsgaard.
- 38Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsChicago TribuneMichael PhillipsA coming-of-ager that nearly slaughters you by minute 30 with the relentlessness of its protagonist's voiceovers.
- 38Boston GlobeWesley MorrisBoston GlobeWesley MorrisAlmost nothing works in this movie.
- 25Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanA stillborn rendering of Michael Chabon's first novel.
- 20Village VoiceVillage VoiceMena Suvari, as Art's vindictive ex-fuckbuddy, gives sole signs of life--Miller is so void of presence that one can forget she's in the movie from scene to scene.