American Splendor is the story of comic book pioneer Harvey Pekar, whose contribution to the medium consisted of introducing everyday events into the genre normally reserved for superheroic exploits. The film itself is a hybrid, consisting of documentary footage, re-creations of real-life events and interviews with Pekar himself.
When we meet the fictional Harvey (played by acclaimed character actor Paul Giamatti in his first starring role) he wanders through the streets of his native Cleveland. A two-time loser in marriage, a garage-sale obsessive and file clerk at the V.A. hospital, the crushing realities of his depressing existence lead him to write about his everyday life. His friendship with fellow eccentric (and revered underground comic artist) Robert Crumb serves as a catalyst when the artist offers to draw his stories, and from there the film documents his rise from anonymity to notoriety as a cult figure-first from his comic book, to his appearances on Letterman. Along the way we are introduced to the interesting figures in Harvey’s life, all of who are painstakingly re-created for the dramatic re-interpretation of the biopic.
In this respect, the actors’ performances are note-perfect. Giamatti’s imitation is dead-on, as is Hope Davis’ rendition of his wife Joyce. The film makes this clear by putting the actor and the real figure in the same setting, and rather than revealing its postmodern transparency it also reveals its conceit-it wants to be a documentary, but lacks the raw material to be one. The filmmakers neither have enough archival footage to re-create the real Harvey, nor do their adaptations of Harvey’s writing offer anything fascinating. While relating boring everyday events in a comic book was a groundbreaking subversion of the genre, their interpretation on film only makes for a boring movie.
The shame of it all is that after seeing the Letterman footage within the film, it’s clear that a documentary that consisted simply of interviews with Harvey Pekar would have been a lot more interesting than a recreation of the boring events of his life. I suspect that the Grand Jury Prize American Splendor won at the Sundance Festival earlier this year is based on this fact, and serves as a lifetime achievement award rather than a reward for a good film (which it isn’t).
