American Splendor (2003)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Harvey Pekar	Paul Giamatti
Toby Radloff	Judah Friedlander	½
Joyce Brabner	Hope Davis
Robert Crumb	James Urbaniak

Review

The obvious and unpolished dullness of Harvey Pekar – the man whose life this semi-documentary is based upon – is to a large extent what makes this little film the joyous peculiarity it is. The film is a biographic story about a more or less unhappy young man who finds success in making comics about his own small-scale miseries. The result was/is the renowned cartoon magazines American Splendor which has had a central position in the American comic market since the 70's.

The film, by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, thrives on many of the same trivial observations that the comics do. And it is charming and amusing without necessarily being neither funny nor interesting. On the form level, however, American Splendor is structurally creative - erasing the border between character and actor in a shrewd and well-functioning way. There's a funny moment when the real Harvey Pekar voices his concern that Paul Giamatti "looks nothing like me", implicitly stating that he thinks the actor isn't good-looking enough. It is a solid achievement to not let this mixing of fiction and documentary corrupt the drama. Giamatti, who is one of the industry's hidden treasures, is impressive in the lead. Still, the film cannot completely escape from the fact that this is a movie about trivial people and not too exclusive events. It is undeniably cute and clever, but far from powerful.