Face it - life is boring. However, watching other people's lackluster lives is not. That's why we have reality TV. The film American Splendor encompasses those same homely B-sides of the American Dream we love to watch, except on a more intelligent level.
Paul Giamatti plays American Splendor's stagnating protagonist, Harvey Pekar. Divorced, balding, a bit fat and working in a file clerk office lavished in linoleum and antiseptic fluorescent lighting, Pekar is a pretty normal American.
American Splendor transforms normality into oddity. The premise of the film, "ordinary life is pretty complex stuff," wrings out the boredom of Pekar's life when he comes up with an idea. Pekar and the kitsch-dressing Robert Crumb, played by James Urbaniak, morph Pekar's daily thoughts and annoyances into comic books.
Aside from the dismal mid-70s Cleveland backdrop, the film tricks viewers into laughing at things they might cry over.
Pekar's second divorce is an example of a simultaneously amusing and depressing scene. As in a general divorce scene, the wife packs her belongings into boxes while the husband pleads. The same scene manifests here, except Pekar has a lump in his throat, causing his voice to squeak shrill proclamations of love.
I almost thought the directors meant to spite the recent influx of superhero flicks but figured they stock more rhetorical artillery than just satire. Still, like in superhero comics, the film revives those all-caps font captions to use as scene transitions.
To complement its visual highlights, American Splendor hosts eloquent jazz tracks, mostly scratching alto sax features. Creating ironic contrast with the grotesque Cleveland setting, the jazz chirps with happiness.
American Splendor dons a lot of artistic plumage but speaks in bare terms. Pekar's comic gains success, he finds a girlfriend and is a regular on the Letterman show. He notes in the film that gloom and doom sell, so he continues to be himself. Comic archives of grocery store lines and dull weekends create stories free from unrealistic superpowers and unattainable fantasy.
Pekar always seems lonely. Rather than crying, he conducts monologues in his head to fluently express his feelings. Often, they are amusing. He addresses his lonely delusions in bed, saying, "Sometimes, I'd feel a body next to me like an amputee feels a phantom limb."
Beyond Pekar, American Splendor serves a smorgasbord of peculiar characters. Between the semi-autistic Toby Radloff and Joyce Brabiner, Pekar's bizarre girlfriend, the film swells with color.
Pekar and Brabiner have a dissonant relationship. He backs a take-what-you-can-get philosophy in life and with Brabiner. Pekar contends with an archetypical nerd, his near-spiritual connection with Revenge of the Nerds and Brabiner's obsession with saving war-torn Middle Easterners. Really, his humdrum life drips with oddity.
Don't think the film got off that easily; there were some aspects that irritated me. The plot of American Splendor is sometimes too random. Just as fleeting thoughts in a brain come in random sequence, some of the scenes pop up out of nowhere.
The largest violation of the plot is during Pekar's brush with cancer. This episode naturally depresses, as any cancer story should. In the middle of the cancer story, the focus abruptly shifts to Pekar, upright and with hair. To baffle me even more, he began ranting about two other Henry Pekars in Cleveland's phone book. A pointless monologue, it is a tumor endangering a brilliant plot.
This was the first time I did not get a sore neck sitting in the front row. It's mostly because of the rocking seats but also because this isn't some pretentious movie about escapism or a good cop gone bad. For once, full price was worth it.
Chris Kark is a features reporter for the Web Devil. Reach him at christopher.kark@asu.edu.
