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Written by Pete Timmermann Thursday, 30 June 2005 03:44

Pekar is a near-genius at capturing little truths about life, and is often very funny is his depression and self-deprecation.

 

As admitted within the new film American Splendor, the life of Harvey Pekar is already very well-documented. He has written a popular underground comic (also called American Splendor) about his day-to-day life as a file clerk for quite some time, was a recurring guest on David Letterman in the ’80s, and has even had a play based on his life. With the new addition of a feature film, why would there be so many forms of entertainment based around the boring and uneventful life of a loser file clerk? Well, because Pekar is a near-genius at capturing little truths about life, and is often very funny is his depression and self-deprecation. Besides, some of us read comic books, attend plays, and go to movies not because we want mindless escapism, but because we want to know that we are not alone in our boring lives and menial problems.

The film American Splendor, which was a huge success at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, drunkenly stumbles between fiction and nonfiction, in that the majority of the film is made up of recreations of events of Pekar’s life, wherein Paul Giamatti (Pig Vomit from Private Parts) plays Pekar. Imagine the bastard child of Terry Zwigoff’s Crumb and Ghost World, with Steve Buscemi playing Robert Crumb half the time, and you’re pretty close (incidentally, Robert Crumb is a minor character in Splendor, and he is played dead-on by James Urbaniak of Henry Fool). However, the real Pekar is interviewed in the interim between scenes (perhaps these interviews were scripted, it’s hard to tell), as well as lending his vocal talents to the job of “narrator” (the end result of which sounds like what would happen if Pimply Faced Teen from The Simpsons narrated a film).

Other characters turn up as both actors and non-actors, such as Pekar’s wife Joyce (Hope Davis) and Pekar’s ubernerd office mate Toby (Judah Friedlander). The end effect is less jarring and experimental than it might sound, instead adding a degree of realism to the film that most docudramas lack—which is helpful, as Pekar’s whole interest in art in the first place is to make it as true to the real life of average people as possible.

In spite of all that is going for American Splendor, many viewers unfamiliar with Pekar will likely find him irritating, because both he and his comic books are very much an acquired taste. His humor is so dry it is almost nonexistent; his life is boring no matter how successful he gets; and he is always, always in a bad mood. This is potentially a problem, because this is Pekar’s movie, so if you don’t like him, you won’t like the movie. Still, it is worth taking that chance, because American Splendor offers many rewards for those who can relate to Pekar and his working class travails.