“American Splendor”

By David DiCerto
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- "American Splendor" (Fine Line) explores life in all its mundane magnificence through the eyes of an underground comic-book maverick and cantankerous connoisseur of contemporary culture, Harvey Pekar.

An adroit blending by directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini of animation and traditional narrative with documentary-style interviews with the real Pekar creates an intimate portrait of an Everyman icon while offering mordantly humorous commentary on everything from American politics and pop culture to choosing the right supermarket checkout line.

Borrowing its title from the autobiographical comic-book series penned by Pekar, the film's ingenious, self-referential opening credit sequence sets the unconventional tone for much of what is to follow.

Cleveland native and first-class curmudgeon Pekar (Paul Giamatti) is a study in contradictions, both a Rust Belt renaissance man and misanthropic mensch -- college dropout, Army reject, jazz aficionado, omnivorous reader, pack rat, hypochondriac, blue-collar philosopher and, in the words of a dear friend, "a driven, compulsive, mad Jew."

Fueled by a failed marriage and a dead-end existence as a VA hospital file clerk -- a position he held from 1966 until his retirement in 2001 -- Pekar's life plunges into a black hole of existential angst. Battling depression, the gravel-toned grump decides to document his life in a comic book series entitled "American Splendor," publishing the first issue in 1976.

Illustrated by friend and fellow oddball R. Crumb, himself the subject of the 1994 film "Crumb," the magazine, an unsentimental record of working-class life -- sort of an early animated precursor to reality TV shows -- quickly gains Pekar a following, including his future wife, Joyce Brabner (Hope Davis), whose similar sarcasm made them instant sardonic soul mates as well as sparring partners.

Like its source material, "American Splendor" does not follow any narrative trajectory, but unfolds in episodic fashion, charting Pekar's growing cult-celebrity status -- including a 1990 stage adaptation of his comic book and a short-lived taste of the limelight as a choleric guest on "Late Night with David Letterman." His bout with cancer is also examined in true Pekar fashion, when, at Joyce's prompting, he chronicles his treatment and recovery in the 1994 graphic novel "Our Year With Cancer."

Giamatti, who does not strike much of a resemblance to Pekar, does manage to capture his frazzled-schmo energy, skillfully conveying Pekar's haggard anomie through expressive eye gestures -- at once both kinetic and torpid.

Despite a discursive script and meandering pace, the film's dramatic rudder -- Pekar's alienation and search for meaning in life's marvelous minutiae -- holds the story in tow, driving it forward and providing a linchpin to keep viewers engaged. Its inventive mixing of narrative and documentary formats refuses to be encumbered by genre labels. Of course it is ironic that several characters and real-life events were altered in order to lend focus and cohesion to a screenplay based on a comic book which eschewed tidy narratives.

Sadly, the Divine has no play in the prickly poet's musings about ultimate meaning and purpose, a deficit compounded by an unabashed pessimism that pervades his opinionated opuses.

In what passes as backhanded optimism, Pekar, commenting on his lymphoma's remission, observes, "I'll lose the war eventually, but the goal is to win a few skirmishes along the way." Yet underneath his cynical skulking, self-loathing and acerbic wit, Pekar comes across as deeply sensitive to, or at least fascinated by, life -- "so sweet, so hard and so hard to give up in the end" -- that he feels compelled to record even the most humdrum experiences of day-to-day living, finding beauty in the stuff of the everyday, thus imbuing it with significance; as Pekar opines, "Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff."

Due to an implied sexual encounter and some rough language and profanity, the USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted.

* DiCerto is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.