Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
This one surprises me. I’ve talked to several people who saw this film at Sundance this year, and they liked it a hell of a lot, a hell of a lot more than this reviewer. Still... Earwicker’s been around. He’s been a good spy for us in the past. Let’s see what he says:
Hey Harry, Earwicker here with a review of a film I was looking forward too very much. The film is called American Splendor, and it's based on the eponymous comics of Harvey Pekar. The film stars Hope Davis and Paul Giamatti as Joyce Brabner and Harvey Pekar, and it's a bizarre and original mix of documentary footage and dramatized stories taken directly from Pekar's work.
The actors in the film all perform dead-on impersonations of the characters in Pekar's life, since we actually meet a few of them. Judah Friedlander, the New York Stand Up Comic, does a particularly good job at mimicry of Harvey's strange, troubled and slightly autistic Toby Radloff. Readers of the comic will see verbatim (nearly shot-by-shot reproductions) of comics they're remember – the Letterman episodes (some of which are clips from the actual show), and a good deal of Our Cancer Year is encapsulated in the film as well.
Which brings us to the biggest, and ultimately insurmountable problem of the film - the fact that the film only skates on the surface of Harvey's comics. The comic is a testament to the power of the lowly and average individual to realize the expressive nature of the soul. But the film is nothing but a pale (yes, technically accurate) mimickry of the people in Harvey's life, a hollow caricature of people already caricatured on the page.
And in an unfortunate choice by the filmmakers, the writer director team has chosen to show us precisely how hollow the dramatization is. The documentary footage provides clear evidence that the film fails. When you see the actual Letterman episode; when you see the actual Toby Radloff, when you hear Harvey express himself, you realize that actors are only impersonating, not capturing the motions of real -people. I don't understand what the director/writers were thinking.
American Splendor is the OPPOSITE of what Harvey is trying to do. Though the film was clearly made on a low budget, it commercializes and caricatures where it should nurture. Whereas in the comic, we find wisdom in the thoughts of Mr. Boats and Toby, in the film we're invited only to laugh at their adorable foibles as just more weirdos in Harvey's world. Harvey's devastating year undergoing cancer treatment (a movie in itself) is rushed through at montage-speed and it looks as though Harvey's been through a bad cold, if that. Just because the comic doesn't over-dramatize Harvey's illness doesn't mean you leave out the painful details. The film fails to find pathos even when Harvey hands it to them on a silver platter.
One scene epitomizes the trouble with the film. In a very difficult scene for me, Harvey convinces R. Crumb about his manifesto of neo-realism, and invokes Vittorio DeSica as his hero. At that point, my mind left the film entirely. Why aren't I watching the Bicycle Thief right now? Why aren't I watching Umberto D? I could have spent last night watching a much better film do precisely what Harvey wants, to raise the common man to the level of hero. And yet here I am in a press screening wasting money I never even spent. I'm sure this oddity that will doubtlessly be over-praised by an art-hungry critical press. The Sundance Jury was already fooled. I guess they were too busy looking for Britney Spears to realize they were watching a complete failure.
Movies to watch instead of American Splendor:
Underground Comix: Ghost World
Overground Comix: X-Men
Fanfare for the Common Man: Bicycle Thief, Umberto D
Comedy for the Common Man: Groundhog Day
Or even better, pick up Harvey's comics. I'm happy that he's gotten some bread outta this and I hope the film does well. But I can't recommend it.
The Forgotten Crumb Brother
Wow. Personally, I’m very curious to get a look at the film when Fine Line puts it out at the end of the summer, despite the fairly convincing case “The Forgotten Crumb Brother” lays out.
"Moriarty" out.
