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 Alot of reviews that I have read recently find this movie depressing, and yet I can't look at it like that. Through out the movie Harvey finds himself in horrid situations, and yet in the end, even through all of that, finds people who love and care about him. Yes,he himself is grumpy and old, but even then, in the shot at his retirment, you see that he has people there for him. He starts saying he is so lonely, and in the end, he isn't. He is surrounded by those who care for him. I know I sound sappy, but thats what I saw. Yes, there are also those moments were you feel like he has been cursed, but it never stays that way. An amazing, and superb film that will stick in your mind for as long as you live.
"American Splendor" is a rather peculiar movie, though a fairly good one. "American Splendor" is about the life and times of Harvey Pekar. Harvey is not the sort of man you would ordinarily expect to have a movie made about, Harvey is also the author of the comic book of the same title. "American Splendor", the comic, is not your usual kind of comic. There are no superheroes and nobody wears a spandex bodysuit. The comic is about real life: specifically the real life of Harvey Pekar himself. This movie is an adaptation of the comic, so it is a film about a comic about a real man. With that in mind, "American Splendor" mixes several styles of film narrative. We have the basic story of Harvey Pekar's life, but the story is actually narrated by the real Harvey Pekar who acknowledges when Harvey (Paul Giamatti) appears on screen "That's me." Then he goes on to say that it is only an actor playing him and that they don't really look alike. Since this is a movie based on a comic, we also get pauses where the film switches to a comic book frame (or moves from the frame into a scene), which works rather well in this film (in comparison to "The Hulk", which did not work quite as well as it did here). There is also a documentary style to the film as it moves from a movie scene to the real Harvey and the real Joyce being interviewed. While these styles, perhaps, should not work in the film, they do and rather well at that. The film truly begins (there is a scene before this with a young Harvey) with Harvey getting dumped by his second wife. This sends him into a funk, but he meets a man named Crumb who is a talented artist and eventually becomes successful and famous. When Crumb visits Harvey a couple of years later Harvey has the idea for writing a new style of comic book, one about the ordinary, day to day stuff (this was revolutionary at the time) and Crumb decides to do the artwork for the book. It is called "American Splendor" and despite being a critical success and an underground favorite it does not permit Harvey to leave his job as a file clerk. What the comic does give Harvey, other than some limited acclaim, is that it is the impetuous for Joyce (Hope Davis) to write Harvey and eventually meet and marry him. They have a rather strange relationship, and though it may not be based on love, it seems to work (both in the film's story as well as in the documentary portions). We trace Harvey's life through his co-workers (an interesting cast of characters), through his appearances on the David Letterman show (where we see the actual footage, but when Harvey steps off the stage it switches over to the film Harvey again), through his year of cancer and up through the present. This was a surprisingly interesting film, and it worked more successfully than I expected. It will not make my list of top ten films, but it was good and had some excellent performances (Giamatti should have been recognized by Oscar for this one). I'll recommend this one with the "Good stuff" rating. It's not great, but it is good.
Giamatti bears little physical resemblance to Pekar, yet he manages to brings Pekar's personality to life. With his sullen sneer, his stooped posture, and his grubby demeanor, Giamatti makes us understand why this man is a solitary misfit. However, life has a way of taking strange twists and turns. After meeting the celebrated underground comic artist, Robert Crumb, Pekar starts writing a comic book about his own life. The comic has the ironic title of "American Splendor," and it achieves a measure of success. Even more amazingly, Harvey meets his soul mate, an equally neurotic and lonely individual named Joyce Brabner, played magnificently by the fabulous Hope Davis. Hope Davis steals the movie because her character is more shaded than Pekar's. She is an obsessive compulsive and dysfunctional individual, who spends an inordinate amount of time lying in bed in a state of depression. Yet, she is capable of great love and tolerance, putting up with Pekar's immaturity and self-centeredness, and giving him the nurturing that he so desperately needs. Joyce supports her husband emotionally while he battles cancer, and she even gets him to agree to adopt a little girl. Joyce's warm relationship with her adopted daughter is a wonder to behold. Joyce brings out the best in Pekar, although the real Pekar admits that he still fights with his wife constantly. Special mention must go to the hilarious Jonah Friedlander, whose portrayal of Toby Radloff, a nerdy colleague of Pekar's in the veterans hospital, is one of the funniest comic turns that I have seen in some time. He is a nerd who is proud of his nerdiness, and he speaks in an exaggerated monotone that is both weird and hilarious. The movie features appearances by the real Pekar and his wife, Joyce, as well as excerpts from the "American Splendor" comic books. I found these interludes to be more distracting than entertaining, although many critics have hailed this mixture of reality and fiction as innovative. What I found truly redeeming in "American Splendor" is the idea that everyone, no matter how ordinary and unprepossessing, has something to contribute and deserves a chance at happiness and fulfillment.
Pekar's life is a curious combination of pessimism and honesty. We are not surprised when he never gets promoted at work or when he gets testicular cancer because this seems to be the lot life has given Pekar. However, we are surprised when a fan who works at a comic book store, Joyce Brabner (Hope Davis), makes contact with him hoping he has an extra copy of an issue of "American Splendor" that she missed. She comes for a visit, curious to see which version of Pekar in the comic book is most like the real one. His immediate reaction is to tell her, "You might as well know right off the bat, I had a vasectomy." Her response later in their date, after a severe attack of food poisioning, is to announce, "I think we should skip the whole courtship thing and just get married." This is my kind of love story. If we are not sure that Harvey and Joyce are made for each other, their ability to coexist is confirmed when the real Harvey and Joyce comment on the proceedings in the film. Giamatti and Davis both achieve the level of performance where they are simply inhabiting the characters, which is the best way of making them real. That is important, because there is no more of a sense of plot to "American Splendor" the movie than there was to "American Splendor" the comic book. Pekar's life is a series of clashes, sometimes with David Letterman on late night television, sometimes with the other people at the hospital where he is a file clerk, and sometimes with himself. The great irony is that underground comic books were an alternative to the superhero comic books of D.C. and Marvel, yet in many ways "American Splendor" follows the standard superhero model. Eventually Howard the Duck made his way to Cleveland, but clearly the city dismissed as the armpit of the nation already had its own superhero in Pekar. The point that his life was less than ordinary is driven home repeatedly and ultimately the great appeal of this film is that it tells about an ordinary life in such a unique way.
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A film by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini
