An ordinary man, an extraordinary self-portrait – based on Harvey Pekar's cult series American Splendor
The year is 1976. A photocopied comic magazine appears in record shops and kiosks in Cleveland. It is called American Splendor, and is written by an until then completely unknown man: Harvey Pekar – grumpy, pessimistic, and employed as a file clerk at a local hospital. Instead of superheroes and aliens Pekar writes about himself: neighbours, colleagues, bad days at work and the small, absurd defeats that make up an ordinary life. It turns out to be exactly what the comic book world did not know it needed. The magazine becomes an instant cult success.
American Splendor (2003) takes this unusual life story and does something equally unusual with it on film. Fiction, animation, archive drawings and documentary footage of the real Pekar are woven together into one single expression – often in the same scene. The incomparable Paul Giamatti plays Pekar with spot-on, sour precision, while Pekar himself appears and comments on his own story from the sidelines. The result is a film that is just as original, funny and melancholic as the comic it is based on – a rare case where the adaptation understands exactly what made the source material special.
Film info
Running time: 1h 41min
Produced: USA, 2003
Original title: American Splendor
Director: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Audio: English
Subtitles: Norwegian
Age rating: 15 years
Screening format: 35mm
