American Splendor
American Splendor
Quite possibly the best and funniest American independent film of the year, AMERICAN SPLENDOR immerses the viewer in the life and world-view of Harvey Pekar: file clerk, working-class intellectual, obsessive-compulsive collector and creator of the seminal autobiographical comic book series "American Splendor." For over two decades, the pages of "American Splendor" have documented the mundane tribulations, random experiences and cultural enthusiasms that make up Pekar's day-to-day existence in his native Cleveland, Ohio. AMERICAN SPLENDOR is the true saga of a working-class everyman who found love, family and a creative voice through comic books. Like its namesake comic, AMERICAN SPLENDOR focuses on the large and small moments in the life of its prickly hero, and offers not one, but several illustrations of Harvey Pekar: the Harvey of the main narrative, wonderfully portrayed by Paul Giamatti; a 2D animated Harvey; and the real Harvey, past (via archival footage) and present. The result is an inventive film that captures Pekar's voice in all its simple, honest, and cantankerous human scope.
"It's a profound tribute to lives lived on the fringes of society -- to the introspective loners who are the most observant chroniclers of our times."
-- Scott Foundas, VARIETY
"A jazzy and humane synthesis of the comic books that Cleveland writer Harvey Pekar has for 25 years fashioned from the dross of his daily life."
-- J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE
"You're in for a scrappy, free-form blast."
-- Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE
"It's a profound tribute to lives lived on the fringes of society -- to the introspective loners who are the most observant chroniclers of our times."
-- Scott Foundas, VARIETY
"A jazzy and humane synthesis of the comic books that Cleveland writer Harvey Pekar has for 25 years fashioned from the dross of his daily life."
-- J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE
"You're in for a scrappy, free-form blast."
-- Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE
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