American Splendor

Successfully innovative, American Splendor combines fiction and reality in a spellbinding and amusing way, winning awards at Cannes and Sundance, and proving its maxim that life is pretty complex (and endlessly fascinating) stuff . . .

The story features Harvey Pekar, as himself, as the played by actor Paul Giamatti and as the comic book persona that he has created based on himself. Pekar is downbeat, depressed, in a dead end filing job, rather bitter. His best friend is a self-confessed nerd. Yet when the events of his life are epitomized in comic book snapshots they are intensely poignant, they seem to reach the disenfranchised, the dysfunctional within each of us. We follow him into a marriage that is as weird as he is. The originality of the material is reflected in its postmodern style of presentation, self-awareness of audience-manipulation blending seamlessly with entertainment and artistic delivery. Scenes are introduced and blended with comic book taglines, storyboarding, and even transitions from interloping set discussions with the real Pekar to the actor playing the scene under discussion. If it sounds pretentious, it's not – simply because it works so well and in an unpretentious way. Lovingly created and very moving. Probably the first real classic of 2003 and not to be missed, and for lovers of jazz/blues a soundtrack collectors item.

(Seeing it at the Edinburgh International Film Festival I also had the privilege of seeing the real life Pekar, his wife and adopted daughter together with Paul Giamatti, truly topping off a multi-media experience haha!)

I guess I am sucker for biographies of weird people. This certainly qualifies for that.

What makes this film different from others is the combination of fictional and real people playing the two main characters: Harvey and Joyce Pekar. For most of the film, Paul Giamatti portrays Pekar - the main focus of the film, and Hope Davis plays his wife, Joyce. However, interspersed in the film are comments from the real Harvey and Joyce. Strange!!!

The only thing stranger that the film structure is the story of these actual people. You wouldn't think that two dull introverts like this could be made to look so interesting, but they are. What a testimony to the job the filmmakers did here....and the actors. Giamatti was amazing.

After seeing this movie, I was inspired to go out and obtain several of Harvey Pekar's comic books. Whew! I should have stuck with just the movie. The comics stink!! Don't waste your money.

I must confess that I was a bit apprehensive in going to see this film. I thought it would be one of those movies that are hyped to the max by the adoring critics, but that it would turn out to be a darling of the reviewers and not the great film everyone was making it to be.

Well, I was thoroughly surprised by the brilliant film making shown by the directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini. They have created a film that works in different levels. First, it is the story of Harvey Pekar told in cinematic terms. Secondly, by presenting the real Harvey Pekar to speak to the camera as he is interviewed, it adds another dimension about the directors' vision in bringing him to us to tell us in his own words, that yes, there is a real person whose life we are getting to know. And thirdly, it works as the weird comic strip that Harvey Pekar might have conceived in his mind.

Harvey Pekar is an example of a strange man who lives and functions within the American society, yet, for all practical purposes, he is in his own little world of collecting books and records and writing his wry observations on what he sees around him. Are we to say we are normal and Harry is not? What if it turns out that Harvey had it all figured out and we had no clue? Let the viewer decide for himself.

The directors great achievement is the brilliant casting. Paul Giamatti is the closest thing anyone would have selected to the real Harvey. Up to now, I have only seen Mr. Giamatti in comedies that didn't have the weight of this film. His take on Harvey is so intense that there are parts when we see the actor and immediately, the real Harvey comes on a different scene. Separating them is almost impossible, as Giamatti's performance leads to Harvey and vice versa. He is totally believable here. He proves that whatever he is doing on screen is what we would expect the real Harvey to do on his own life.

The other incredible casting is the one of Hope Davis as Joyce Brabner. Ms. Davis gets the essence of Joyce with very little effort. We can almost see that the Joyce of Hope Davis will result in the actual Joyce we see in the interviews as herself. The resemblance is uncanny. Ms. Davis is outstanding in the film. We wonder what could have attracted her to Harvey, in the first place. Of course, we realize her passion for comics, but on a physical level, these two, as a couple, are miles and miles apart. Yet, their marriage, unlike Harvey's other two before her, survives and grows.

Ms. Davis scenes with the young Danielle are pure poetry. We can see it in her face that motherhood for her is very important, yet, she cannot have a child of her own with Harvey. She is thoroughly rewarded at the end with the arrival of Danielle who finds in Joyce a kind soul and a mother because her real one could not be bothered with her.

The rest of the cast is just as magnificent. Judah Friedlander as Toby is both funny and pathetic. He is another product of the society he lives in. Also effective, James Urbaniak as the illustrator Bob Crumb who sees in Harvey's stories the potential for great comic books.

This is a triumph for all that were involved in this film.

Paul Giamatti plays Harvey Pekar, a writer of underground comic books that document his mundane life as a neurotic file clerk. We meet the other nerds and eccentrics who populate his life, including his fat, bespectacled co-worker with a habit of over-enunciating his words; a black co-worker who buys record albums from Pekar but accuses him of selling nothing but junk; and a female fan of his comics who throws up on her first date with him then announces they should dispense with the courtship and just get married. (He accepts the proposal on the grounds that he's lucky to have any woman who will have him.) Pekar meets Robert Crumb, who illustrates the first of Pekar's comics. He becomes a favored guest on David Letterman until delivering a vituperative rant against Letterman and NBC that gets him barred from the show.

"American Splendor" is mostly a dramatization, but has scenes interspersed where we meet the real Harvey Pekar and the real people in his life. The movie contains many piquant moments, including a scene where the actors and their real-life counterparts appear together on a soundstage. In another scene, Paul Giamatti as Harvey Pekar exits the green room of the Letterman show, followed by a real clip of the real Pekar on the real show. But when Pekar delivers his rant, we see Giamatti with an actor playing David Letterman. We also see an animated Pekar conversing with the real Pekar—or, rather, with Giamatti playing the real Pekar. The movie's visual design makes it look like a mobile comic book; many scenes are bridged with shots of the camera sweeping over comic panels that bridge the story for us.

This had to have been tricky to pull off, but the movie feels effortless. The nature of identity and the nature of reality are themes the movie presents with a lot of humor and insight. Giamatti is excellent and supported by a uniformly fine cast, especially Hope Davis as Joyce Brabner, the woman who threw up on their first date. I also enjoyed the jazz songs on the soundtrack. What a funny, entertaining, intelligent movie.

By no means your average true story, American Splendor blends fact with fiction to create a slightly surreal world. Surreal, because it's so down-to-earth. It's a tale about the life of Harvey Pekar, essentially a relative non-entity. His one saving grace is that he writes comic books, the twist being that they're not about superheroes or anything extraordinary. Rather, they're about gritty reality. Pekar is the star of his own stories, and the life he leads, the people he knows and the everyday things he does are the essence of what his stories entail.

It's a strange story, and to rate it as a movie seems odd, somehow. The guy has led a pretty staple life, and there's nothing in it which elevates him above anyone else. Then again, that's really the point. There are plenty of elements in here which we can all relate to, and consequently, we find ourselves drawn into it. Ultimately it's convincing.

The acting is generally pretty impressive, particularly from Paul Giamatti as Harvey. Given the real Harvey features in the movie (Hence the blending of fact and fiction) we are able to compare them, and it must be said Giamatti gets it spot on. He does a great job of portraying a grump with a heart. By no means is Pekar ever shown as a mercenary worker, but it's pretty obvious he's one of the good guys; hence another strength here. Because he's shown as wysiwyg, you feel like you either know him, or are him. He's the epitome of your average man, and not even just American.

It's a quirky subject for a movie, but it certainly works and entertains. It's so ordinary yet surreal that it demands your attention, and it's a worthwhile journey to go on.

For many people, this movie is a mirror.