American Splendor
What a movie.
I went to see this prize-winner from this year’s Sundance Film Festival on a Friday night after work, and I immediately wanted to get back in line to see it again. This is the sort of movie that gets most of its ink from critics like Peter Travers- who values underdog indie rebels over over-budgeted products of the empirical major studios- and mainstream critics- like Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin- disenfranchised by the banality of the big bread winners. Well deserved plaudits, indeed. This truly one-of-a-kind movie is the story of Harvey Pekar, a file clerk working in Cleveland who, after a chance meeting with renowned comic book artist R. Crumb, is inspired to create his own comic in the ’70s- with Crumb as an initial artist- ripped from his own everyday life. A devout cult following of “American Splendor”- including guest spots on David Letterman and a turbulent marriage to Joyce Brabner, a fan from Baltimore- followed, though he continued to work as a file clerk and live in much the same way he did when he started writing “Splendor.”
Based on both “Splendor” and the later “Our Cancer Year”- written by Pekar and Brabner, chronicling his struggle with cancer- “American Splendor” is a splendid trip to the movies, and a remarkable feature film debut for documentarians Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini. Written with rare warmth and sarcastic wit, and audaciously directed with through-the-looking glass daring and delicacy (we see the real-life Pekar- who provides voiceover narration for context- and his wife, real moments from their life, along with some of the real-life counterparts to Pekar’s friends alongside the actors playing them), Berman and Pulcini turn what should be an unbalanced high-wire act into an artful, poignant, and revealing masterpiece that rivals Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman’s equally brilliant “Adaptation.” from last year as an act of artistic expression-through-bold self-examination. But like “Adaptation.,” it’s the sincerity of the actors in bringing their characters to life that inspires this reviewer’s admiration and respect. As Pekar, Paul Giamatti- a career character actor in films as diverse as “Privates Parts,” “Saving Private Ryan,” and Tim Burton’s “Planet of the Apes”- gives a performance of disarming tenderness beneath Pekar’s gruffish sarcasm that rivals Nic Cage’s tour de force last year as Kaufman in “Adaptation.” in digging below the neurosis to find the nuance of character that makes the real-life artist tick. Equal to Giamatti is Hope Davis (Jack Nicholson’s daughter in “About Schmidt”) as Pekar’s wife Joyce, revealing the emotional highs and lows in Joyce as she looks on as Pekar sells out on Letterman, leaves him- for a time- to write a piece in Isreal on suffering that surpasses their own, and stands firmly by his side as he undergoes treatment for cancer. I’d be willing to bet you’ll hardly find a better female performance in the movies this year. So if you’re like me, and have had nothing but apathy about the past few week’s movies (the reason I’ve haven’t sent any reviews for a few weeks), try to check out “American Splendor,” a splendid time at the movies indeed.
