American Splendor Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)December 8th, 2003
AMERICAN SPLENDOR
U.S. Distributor: HBO Films/Fine Line Films
Directed by: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Written by: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Hope Davis, Harvey Pekar, Shari Springer Berman, Earl Billings, James Urbaniak, Judah Friedlander, Robert Pulcini, Toby Radloff, Joyce Brabner, Donal Logue, Molly Shannon, James McCaffrey, Madylin Sweeten, Danielle Batone
Grade: A-
In both style and content, "American Splendor " is the anti-Hollywood film, which is not to say that most of the stuff that the commercial studios churn out is bad. Take "Seabiscuit," a movie and book that could have taken people suffering during the Great Depression or even the Great Recession of recent times out of themselves. The horse, an underdog like the aforementioned sufferers becomes a hero whose name has been permanently inscribed with Native Dancer, War Admiral and Man of War. In "Spy Kids 3D" young people save a coeval from the clutches of a mean villain who has trapped her inside a video game. "Pirates of the Caribbean" features a larger-than-life swashbuckler who makes fools of the stiff-upper-lip British and gains the adoration of a beautiful woman. These occurrences, these chances to play hero, don't happen to us everyday, which is probably why millions of people stream to the multiplexes to put themselves in the place of mythic figures and youthful heroes.
Can you imagine, though, making routine, daily life not only interesting but in many ways more intense and involving than the characters and situations of glorious melodramas and bodice-ripping romances? Sure. Woody Allen succeeds every year or so and faltered only when he moved into mystical Ingmar Bergman territory. In fact Harvey Pekar, the principal character of this imaginative biopic by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's "American Splendor," is quite a bit like Woody with his obsessive-compulsive neuroses and tendency to say dryly humorous things without quite realizing it. Played by the brilliant character actor Paul Giamatti (we can see just how authentically each time Berman and Pulcini trot the real Harvey Pekar out and note the similarities of both appearance and character), the story proceeds in part documentary, part comic book, part fiction, and all delightful. The one-liners that Giamatti lets loose will be adored by all who appreciate dry humor, with Hope Davis, as Harvey's third wife Joyce, propping up the star perfectly as the straight woman who does just fine on her own in the humor department.
What's anti-Hollywood, then, is the movie's naturalism, which is to say that while based on the eponymous comic book from the '70's and '80's, there are no supermen, no hit men, no explosions or drug dealers or car chases, but just plain ol' daily life. Now, who would think that anything amusing can come out of waiting on line at the supermarket? Harvey doesn't, nor do those of us who must stand in long lines while the checkers file their nails, take sips of soda, and gossip with their colleagues. But in one hilarious scene, Giamatti, trying to figure out how to beat it out of the grocer in a reasonable time, stands behind what he describes an as old Jewish lady. (We know what he's thinking because a balloon magically appears above his head.) Just as he thought, the woman (Sylvia Kauders) amuses herself by trying to talk the cashier and then the manager into giving her six glasses at the sale price though she did not have the required number. Harvey stomps out, leaving his wagon of spaghetti-o's behind. He's annoyed, but we're amused.
Pekar remained a file clerk in the VA hospital for several years after he gained fame as the writer of a comic book series.. Nobody but a few people with whom he worked has any idea of what he contributed to the world in the hospital. He is noted, however, for sketching stories out of his daily experiences and drawing stick figures with monologue and dialogue to be illustrated later by artists like Robert Crumb with whom he hang out. By his admission, he could barely draw a straight line, but as the great illustrator and writer Mark Alan Stamaty once said, cartoons gain their excellence less by the illustrations than by the words. Quite a few idiots can draw well. Only a few can transform everyday experiences consistently into dryly humorous tales. Crumb's name is better known than Pekar's but without the writer, the cartoonist is shooting blanks, illustrating characters with empty balloons over their heads.
It's a stretch to say that the Harvey Pekar we see in the comic book and in this film is an Everyman, but he probably gets close to the truth, that is assuming that most of us in the audience are occasionally disgusted with our jobs, think we're going nowhere, and even while experiencing fifteen minutes of fame wonder what's the big deal. His riotous appearances on the David Letterman show (we see the actual tapes of the real Harvey causing the host grief though he invites the blue-collar storyteller back twice more), his Woody-Allen shtick with his third wife Joyce (when they first meet, he immediately tells her that he had a vasectomy while she counters with "let's cut the courtship and get married"). In other scenes, Toby Radloff (Judah Friedlander), a co-worker of Harvey's at a Cleveland VA hospital, is a self-admitted nerd, a man who once traveled 250 miles to Toledo to catch the film "Revenge of the Nerds" just so he could see himself get back at those who look down on him.
In case the Guinness Book of World Records is interested, a case can be made that the name "Harvey" is repeated more times here than it was in any other movie. For the younger members of the worldwide film audience who have no idea who's the honcho of Miramax and never heard of a six-foot invisible rabbit, this record in itself should make "American Splendor" an instant classic given the brilliance of the name.
Cleverly constructed in switching from the real-life Pekar to the actor, consistently wry rather than belly-laugh vulgar, "American Splendor" is among the finest examples of a story that elevates everyday life into transcendent art.
(C) 2003 by Harvey Karten
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