FILM: American Splendor

Omtale av Maria Haug

“Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff”

“If you’re the kinda person looking for romance or escapism or some fantasy figure to save the day. Guess what? You got the wrong movie” as described by Harvey Pekar himself. This is a film about Harvey Pekar; the Mark Twain of comic books, the poet laureate of Cleveland. Despite his eventual success as a comic book writer, Pekar had humble beginnings. His insistent demand for candidness and his ability to see the extraordinary in the ordinary became his greatest strengths. He finally put pen to paper and, leaving no details spared, transformed his life as a miserable, twice-divorced, file clerk into the ultimate antihero that readers came to love in his comic series American Splendor.

The film, of the same name, doesn’t shy away from attempting to portray Harvey Pekar’s story as honestly as possible – to the extent that it features snippets of Pekar himself. In doing so it becomes a film that is completely unique in its playful mix of genres.

Regissør/Director: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Land/Country: USA
År/Year: 2003
Spilletid/Running time: 101 min
Format: blu-ray