AMERICAN SPLENDOR by Shari Springer Bergman

American Splendor is a comic book adaptation. Yes, among all the Spider-Mans, Batmans and, ahem, Fantastic 4 films, it may seem strange to believe that American Splendor was even a comic book to begin with. But in a time when reality tv was still distant, an underground comic book artist called Harvey Pekar wrote comic books about his own life.

The feeling of the comic is reprodiced quite well in this movie, starting off with the concept of having several versions of Pekar himself portrayed on screen: the real life Pekar, the Pekar as performed by the wonderful character actor Paul Giamatti, the comic book character Pekar (sometimes even animated through flash animation) and at some stage even Pekar as performed in a play by another actor. All this gives it a three dimensional feeling that goes beyond the conventional style of adaptation, although in this case we cannot talk about a trend setter, because it's a style that none, if any, ever bothered picking it up (although an interesting point would be seeing whether this style makes it hard for the film to be categorised in any particular genre, whether it's a documentary film or a fiction film, because a documentary like touching the void in mostly reconstructed, but considered nonetheless a documentary).

The technical aspect of the film may be a tad but overshadowing the plot itself. The way they use different styles of filming, for example a thirty-five millimetre film camera for the fictional pieces and a high definition digital camera for the documentary is distracting, and even too obviously trying to separate the two pieces of the film apart. But there is no doubt that the treat lies with the screenplay and the performance of the actors itself. The screenplay is filled with one liners that are just hilarious and instantly memorable (most of which are taken from the comic book itself, something that makes you wanna read American Splendor). The actors are amazing, and all seem to be strategically placed, as in, all resemble the right kind of people who would play a character like that in the movie, so the casting did a good job.

If it had been in the hands of another filmmaker, this film would probably have had more success at the Academy Awards, it's a real feelgood movie about a loser who is also one of the biggest names in the underground comic book scene, hence an academy award favourite concept, the one of the loser who is also a winner. However, I don't know whether it would have recreated the genuine feeling of the comic book, had the movie been geared towards winning Oscars (who needs an Oscar anyways when you win at Sundance and Cannes, they are much more interesting awards).

WATCH FOR THE MOMENT - Harvey Pekar's first date with his muse, Joyce Brabner. Real witty, funny and sometimes charming.