American Splendor

American Splendor

One of the final scenes in “American Splendor” is a retirement party for Harvey Pekar, who has left a career as a file clerk at a V.A. hospital in Cleveland. It’s a real party, and it’s a real retirement. This is Harvey Pekar we’re talking about comic book writer, Letterman regular and now film star who was indeed a file clerk all his days. “He’s grade G-4,” said his wife, Joyce Brabner, to me when I met them at Cannes 2003. “Grade G-2 is minimum wage. Isn’t that something, after 30 years as a file clerk?” It is something but it got them to Cannes.

Pekar is one of the heroes of graphic novels (comic books with yearning). In the ’70s he had the good fortune to meet R. Crumb, the legendary underground comic artist; observing with his usual sour pessimism that comics were never written about guys like him, Pekar apparently caused light bulbs to pop up over Crumb’s head, and together they created American Splendor: Pekar writing the stories and Crumb illustrating them.

The books are about this guy named Harvey Pekar who works at this dead-end job where nobody appreciates him but that would be too simple because there are people like Toby Radloff “world-class nerd” who do appreciate him though not always at Harveyian levels of existential desperation but then one day he writes this comic book and suddenly there’s this woman Joyce Brabner knocking on his door claiming she understands everything about him while insisting on her own existence or something equally unlikely so anyway they end up with an adopted daughter Danielle Batone (sort of through osmosis; the girl’s father used to be friends with Harvey), and then it just gets more complicated from there including Our Cancer Year, another book they did together after Harvey found a lump on his testicle.

They’re true stories, the comics; deep and funny as hell because they know that we’re all superheroes fighting our way through each day against twisted and perverted villains. We have secret powers nobody suspects. Secret identities. Our enemies may not be as colorful as the Joker or Dr. Evil, but you can bet your ass they’re every bit as malevolent what could be more loathsome than an anal-retentive boss or a lazy doctor’s assistant or a slumlord? When Harvey gets furious, only the pictures tell us he’s not turning into the Hulk.

The genius of American Splendor has always been that real life and fiction go hand in hand. There was a Harvey Pekar who looked exactly like the one in the comic book, and whose life as told in it. Now we have this magnificently daring movie, where sometimes fact and fiction occupy the same frame. We see and hear the real Harvey Pekar, and then we see an actor named Paul Giamatti playing his story, sometimes with Harvey commenting on “this guy who is playing me.” We see the real Joyce Brabner, and we see Hope Davis playing her.

I concede that Giamatti has not only got the look but also some of the feel, maybe even some of the soul of Harvey, although whether he can imitate those endless cigarette coughs without damaging himself remains to be seen; I also concede that Davis gets a lot of Joyce’s looks and mannerisms right; but Friedlander as Toby? Sure enough: Although nobody would ever know how to play Toby Radloff except Toby Radloff himself (and maybe not even him), there are both Tobys up there onscreen together before our wondering eyes.

And if it were only just about real people and fake people but it’s also about different ways of presenting them. There are documentary scenes, fictional scenes; scenes drawn from comics (often segueing into reality or back again); scenes illustrated by comics; scenes developed as comics; scenes drawn directly from reality (or so they seem). The filmmakers have taken what must have seemed like an impossible challenge filming a comic book based on a life and turned it into an advantage: This film is so hypnotic because for once it isn’t trying to get us over behind its characters’ eyes (the way movies usually do) but up under their skins: It wants us stuck there for keeps.

The true Harvey Pekar’s personality is what makes everything work. Any file clerk wouldn’t have done. He’s a genius for conceiving his life as a life, that is, as one among many lives in which the inevitable catastrophe is momentarily postponed each day. He tells the truth to herself. The talks he has with Joyce are the kind we really have. We don’t fight over minor matters because nothing worth fighting over is minor; as Harvey might say, Hey, it’s important to me! The Letterman sequences have the fascination of an oncoming train wreck.

In fact Pekar was a regular on the show in the 1980s and did not differ from the real Harvey one whit. He gave as good as he got until his resentments, angers and grudges led him to question the fundamental realities of the show itself, whereupon they bounced him. We see real Letterman footage and then a fictional re-creation of Pekar’s final appearance on the show; Letterman is not such a bad guy but he does have a show to do and Pekar makes a good guest up to a point beyond which he goes far, far beyond that point.

When I talked with him at Cannes, Pekar confided that after Letterman essentially fired him and went to a commercial break, Dave leaned over and whispered into Harvey’s ear: “You blew a good thing.” Well, he did; but blowing good things is Harvey’s fate in life just as stumbling onto them is his victory only in both cases we know that no effect whatever has been intended by him but that every decision or response proceeds from some bottomless well of absolute certainty about which we can only wonder more.

I also found out that Harvey isn’t entirely dyspeptic grump who has no other thoughts than those reflected on surface level reality; sometimes there may be some sweetness mixed with all hopelessness even if it’s so deep down inside somewhere that light can’t reach.

The movie is charming because of its unique method of storytelling. There was no precedent to follow, but the writers and directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini have succeeded in creating a masterpiece by relying on Pekar’s artistic philosophy: “What you see is what you get.” The choice of Giamatti and Davis for these roles could not have been better as any other actors would’ve caused the entire project to fail.

Although Giamatti has portrayed characters similar to this one, such as in “Storytelling,” “Private Parts” or even “Man on the Moon,” none compare with what Davis accomplishes here. Recently seen playing a dentist, wife and mom in “The Secret Lives of Dentists,” where she had nothing at all resembling Joyce Brabner about her looks or mannerisms let alone identity…and now look at who we find ourselves meeting once more! It’s Joyce Brabner herself

Sometimes, movies like this appear unexpectedly, as if they were independent marvels. However, “American Splendor” has its roots which are Harvey Pekar himself his life and what he did with it. He is an authentic individual. Joyce is also a genuine person, whom he found, and Danielle found them both. And when I was talking to her, I realized that she was authentic too.

She said that she dreams of becoming a showbiz star but not an actress because at forty that career is over for women in Hollywood: nobody will hire them anymore after such age, and therefore she wants to work behind the scenes where one can have longer-term employability those were her exact words. Harvey nodded approvingly; go for pension plan!

Watch American Splendor For Free On Gomovies.