Synopsis: Ordinary Life is Pretty Complex Stuff

American Splendor is the story of a little-known working-class everyman, and first-class curmudgeon, Harvey Pekar. Pekar finds love, family and a creative voice through the underground comic books he creates, but still can’t manage to find the quicker supermarket checkout line. Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.

Pekar, played by Paul Giamatti, is a frustrated file clerk at a V.A. Hospital, but also a comic book fan who befriends the young illustrator Robert Crumb and is soon inspired to create comic books based on his own life, entitled American Splendor. Along the bumpy journey, he meets, marries and falls for Joyce, an admiring comic book seller, played by Hope Davis.

Also appearing in the movie are the real Harvey and Joyce, comic book renderings of the couple and cameos by some of Harvey’s closest friends. In this truly original, ultimately heartwarming film, you will find yourself deeply immersed in a world of American Splendor.
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American Splendor 8.5

I remember the first time that I heard of Harvey Pekar. It was in 1993, when David Letterman moved to CBS, and I started to watch his show regularly. Pekar was one of the earlier guests and I had no idea who he was. Clearly, I was the only one not in on the joke, because everyone in the studio wase having a grand old time (mostly at his expense). His appearance left an indelible impression on me because he was cantankerous, abrasive and looked completely out of place.

Flash-forward a few years.

I don’t recall if I heard of his comic strip after seeing him on Letterman, but I nonetheless decided to watch the movie version of it. Like the strip, the film is a docu-drama about Pekar’s everyday life – except that the film only touches upon the highlights (whereas the strip covers all its most miniscule, “mundane” details). It also features comic book-style panels and bubbles along the way, so the film sometimes feels like an animated comic book – a style perfectly-suited to the concept of this film.

Further blurring the lines between reality, comic-book fiction and movie magic is the fact that the filmmakers decided to bring in the real characters in all their idiosyncratic glory and mix them up with the actors who play them (for example, there are small excerpts where the real Harvey Pekar is interviewed on-screen, while Paul Giamatti, his Hollywood doppelganger, is sitting in the background watching). There are even bits of the ‘American Splendor’ comic strip that are re-created for the film – but with a Paul Giamatti-like version of Pekar taking centre-stage in his stead.

Pekar’s life, while very grey and unexciting (to me, anyway), is full of colourful characters such as Joyce, his spouse, Toby, his closest friend (and work colleague), and the infamous author/illustrator Robert Crumb. Thus, without the help of car-chases, gun battles, or “sexy” love scenes, the film does keep one’s attention until its climax, which essentially brings us up to speed with the author’s life at the time of the film’s making.

Original as the film may be, however, it tapers off towards the middle and becomes a more conventional, linear film. It’s unfortunate but, by that point, the viewer is already propelled through Pekar’s (mis)adventures, and any lost momentum doesn’t deter greatly from the experience – we are carried through to the end without any dramatic slowdowns in pacing or enjoyment.

‘American Splendor’ is the perfect example of reality affecting fiction affecting reality (even the “facts”, as shown on-screen, are stretched and tweaked), and the way that the filmmakers played with both is rather unique and brilliant. I believe that ‘American Splendor’ is one of those rare films that takes a regular guy and makes him larger than life -warts and all- yet retains all the humanity and heart of its subject.

‘American Splendor’ is simply splendiferous.