American Splendor

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American Splendor

85% Liked It
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American Splendor

Donal Logue, Earl Billings, Harvey Pekar, Hope Davis, James McCaffrey

Harvey Pekar is file clerk at the local VA hospital. His interactions with his co-workers offer some relief from the monotony, and their discussions encompass everything from music to the decline of A...( read more  read more... )merican culture to new flavors of jellybeans and life itself. At home, Harvey fills his days with reading, writing and listening to jazz. His apartment is filled with thousands of books and LPs, and he regularly scours Cleveland's thrift stores and garage sales for more, savoring the rare joy of a 25-cent find. It is at one of these junk sales that Harvey meets Robert Crumb, a greeting card artist and music enthusiast. When, years later, Crumb finds international success for his underground comics, the idea that comic books can be a valid art form for adults inspires Harvey to write his own brand of comic book. An admirer of naturalist writers like Theodore Dreiser, Harvey makes his "American Splendor" a truthful, unsentimental record of his working-class life, a warts-and-all self portrait. First published in 1976, the comic earns Harvey cult fame throughout the 1980s and eventually leads him to the sardonic Joyce Barber, a partner in a Delaware comic book store who end ups being Harvey's true soul mate as they experience the bizarre byproducts of Harvey's cult celebrity stature.

Id: 10895220

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American Splendor Recent Reviews
  • SirPant
    September 15, 2009
    SirPant
    Probably the best comic adaptation made so far. It made people take Giamatti a little more seriously too which helped his career no end. A great film!
  • gor41
    August 9, 2009
    gor41
    Nicely underplayed biopic of 'one of life's losers done good' . A successful early role for Giamatti who displays the appropriate brooding cynicism. Real people and comic animations are blended effectively into the narrative. Good to see such an unusual character given the biopic...( read more) treatment.
  • ceWEBrity
    January 2, 2009
    ceWEBrity
    American Splendor is its main character, Harvey Pekar. It's clever and innovative, sure, but it's also a dour asshole and it's up to the viewer to decide if it's something worth knowing. I would never choose to associate with someone like Pekar in the course of my lifetime. He re...( read more)presents the absolute nadir of the "self-absorbed, abrasive artist" archetype, and watching this supposed everyman bitch and whine his way through his entire life is not exactly appealing to me.

    There are some minor chuckles to be had here, but I took nothing away from the movie except a vague feeling of frustration. I didn't learn about the plight of an anti-social artist; those processes were not deepened or illuminated any way. All I did see was a trapped, angry man who thoughtlessly burned all his bridges for no real reason, except just to be a contrary grump. Paul Giamatti is great here, and successfully add a dash of leavening anguish to the movie's general atmosphere of chained-up rage once the cancer plot rolls around.

    If there's one sensation I don't like to feel when I'm watching a film, it's frustration. If you're frustrated FOR a character, that's fine; it means that the film is most likely doing its job. If you're frustrated BECAUSE of a character, it's either because that character is meant to or because they're just irritating. Harvey Pekar is presented here as an contrarian, sure, and I'm sure American Splendor doesn't mean to venerate his actions or artificially warm him to the audience. I don't think the film gave me enough to let me develop a positive opinion of him, in the end. It's good that it's trusting enough of a viewer's critical thought to not force him down our throat, but I still consider American Splendor a failure. It is 100 minutes of a man I never want to meet again.
  • middleeasternfilms
    November 30, 2008
    middleeasternfilms
    Paul Giamatti is brilliant and Harvey Pekar is actually allowed to be himself as he narrates this movie about his life that's part-documantary and part film with comic book elements scattered throughout. It's long and a bit drawn out, but if you like this kind of thing then you'l...( read more)l find the film extremely worthwhile. If not, then don't set the remote down too far away.
  • shortcartoonist
    September 29, 2008
    shortcartoonist
    A humbled rumination on the prospects of a hero and a celebration of the everyday man, American Splendor is a sweetly bleak tale of life at a simple, base level. For what can be easily perceived as cynical through its drab quirks moulds itself into a form of understanding - Harve...( read more)y Pekar is the everyman with ideas so relatable, and emotions so palpable. He's a strange man, who's life is more blurred between his comic persona and his real self than he would like to let on, but his unique imagination and outlooks make for film matter that is intriguing on both a thematic and stylistic level.

    We are constantly thrust into questions and comparisons. Not only are we relating the real Pekar to Giamatti's portrayal, but we are comparing the documenting of reality with the paintings of the fiction - or what could be considered the other way around. Giamatti's scenes are gritty and drab, while Pekar's are finely pencilled and polished - almost surreal. We witness the character of Pekar in his evolution into the real picture - a shining light of unique substance at the end of what was a very - ordinary - life. But nevertheless, it's an ordinary life that makes for an insightful and strangely captivating film.
  • 21rclemente
    November 20, 2009
    21rclemente
    if I feel like watching a slow and dramatic film
  • steakncheese
    November 4, 2009
    steakncheese
    American Splendor is stylish, intelligent and original. Yet it is appropriately humble and honest to life, as bitter-sweet as it can be. The characters are given a lot of depth and the story builds in a way that pulls you in to life of Harvey Pekar. He is a seemingly likeable man...( read more), but he is presented in such an honest way, I feel as though I know him personally.
  • dukeakasmudge
    October 29, 2009
    dukeakasmudge
    Im not into the comic books but I definitely liked the movie even though I wasnt expecting to
  • anunholyvoid
    September 25, 2009
    anunholyvoid
    This film is lost on me. It mixes reality and fiction on topics I know little about - comics and a comic book writer. Also based on a true story, this tells the story of Harvey Pekar, an ordinary man leading a mundane life of nothingness. He writes a comic book based on his life ...( read more)and marriage to a strange woman. I thought it was rather dull, despite all the overblown innovation and creativity. Not a fan of this.
  • ElCochran90
    September 18, 2009
    ElCochran90
    One of the most originally-told, smartest and entertaining biographical tales I've ever seen. A masterpiece in modern cinema. American Splendor is definitely a sample of American brilliance.

    80/100
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