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Review

Harvey Pekar, quintessential Everyman, boorish, slovenly, Cleveland civil servant, elevates the mundane to a universal sublime by making comic books out of his pedestrian life. This graphic expression of self was precipitated by a chance meeting with pop culture icon Robert Crumb at a yard sale in the early 1960s. Pekar can't draw, so he writes the script and myriad artists flesh out his words, with Crumb as the first. Interviews with Pekar and his third wife Joyce Brabner intertwine with dramatic reenactments from his life story. Giamatti as Pekar and Davis as Brabner capture their subjects, body and soul. As we follow Pekar from his first attempts at writing, his appearances on "Letterman" and his battle with cancer, the film takes on a mesmerizing, self-reflexive quality, becoming a meditation on identity and meaning; at one point, the real Harvey and Joyce are watching the movie Harvey and Joyce as they watch a stage Harvey and Joyce. This seemingly pointless recounting of moments from the life of a negative, miserly, crude, curmudgeonly sad sack imparts in the end an improbable feeling of contentment and well-being. American splendor, indeed; it's clear that the entire cast and crew became as spellbound as the viewer during this inspired evocation of the sacred commonplace. The film is a haunting, wry tribute to life's ethereal flip side, hinting that the most base and ordinary is the only feasible representation of the transcendent. See this film.

 -- Ann Yarabinee