by MATTHEW HAYS

There's something a bit eerie about watching Paul Giamatti in American Splendor. Here, the character actor, who's largely been relegated to supporting roles until now, works to fill the shoes of Harvey Pekar, legendary comic-book author and crank. And Giamatti turns in one of those surreal performances, in which the actor becomes more like the actual person they're portraying than the person themselves. Think Robert De Niro doing Jake La Motta. Denzel Washington as Malcolm X. Or Faye Dunaway doing Joan Crawford.

And Giamatti's got competition. In Splendor, directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini work to float several layers of meta-narrative. That's Giamatti playing Pekar; that's a crew of other actors playing actors doing the off-Broadway play about Pekar's life; and that's also Pekar himself, discussing his life and the movie itself in a series of documentary-style interviews throughout the feature.

It's a complex, intricate juggling act, but the good news is that the folks behind American Splendor manage it absolutely beautifully. This is one of those rare post-festival-hype oddities: a winner at both Sundance and Cannes, this film lives up to the reputation. This is a film that's at once touching, funny and other-worldly, a surprising and refreshing bit of genre defiance that proves that distinctive movies can still be made, even in an age when some say everything has already been done.

All the while, American Splendor never loses sight of its mandate: to recreate and reflect the strange perspective of Pekar, a Cleveland, VA, file clerk who, in part through his friendship with fellow comix legend Robert Crumb, decided to jot down notes about his life in comic-book form. Unable to draw, Pekar showed his stick-man diary entries to Crumb, who offered to draw them up for Pekar. The comics have gone through a series of artists, and have proven to be best-selling graphic novels. Throughout the decades, Pekar has chronicled everything, from meeting a groupie (and later marrying her) to battling cancer. Pekar has been called a blue-collar Mark Twain; his talents lay in his keen ability to take what even he considers a mundane existence and make it unusually droll and telling. Part existential angst, part slice-of-mundane-life, American Splendor, the comic, has proven successful precisely because its protagonist is so opposite to the average notion of splendor. In keeping with the very best of adaptations, Splendor, the movie, has kept this spirit intact, and even enhanced it.

Leaving Letterman

American Splendor also illustrates Pekar's notorious string of appearances on Late Night With David Letterman. The late-night guru's take on wacky guests draws a fine line between all-in-good-fun and cruel exploitation, and Pekar always sensed this. Here, we see the actual clips, as Pekar turns on Letterman, who insists to Pekar that "I'm on your side!" To no avail; Pekar has decided Letterman's being nasty, and proceeds to ensure that he'll never have to appear there again. Pekar's final stint there has become one of the most famous in the talk-show host's history.

Crucial to this film's success is also Hope Davis as Joyce, Pekar's fan-cum-wife. She is a longtime fan who becomes dependent on reading American Splendor comics to stave off depression; when her copy doesn't arrive, she phones up Pekar to ask him to send it to her directly. They begin a phone relationship, which leads to a first date. They go to a franchise restaurant; he tells her he's had a vasectomy. They go back to his place. They kiss. She throws up. Barely a split second later, it seems, they're getting married.

Not to be forgotten are the fine bits and pieces of animation that are also interwoven, an obvious but no less clever device Berman and Pulcini throw in for good measure. Pekar, someone no one would ever refer to as animated, and his animated form, and his onscreen emulation (Giamatti), all compete for screen time. And it is in watching such a richly drawn, complex film that we become the winners.

American Splendor opens Friday, Aug. 22 at the Cinéma du Parc

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