Just a feeling of soothingness

Rating: 7/10 (29 May 2005)

I don't know if it is because of the jazz, or the general 70-80 atmosphere, or maybe because I had just watched Dancer in the dark right before, but American Splendor left me a soothing hakuna matata feeling.
As a Spaniard, this appears to me as a deep American subculture flick which could hardly move me. Just as Man on the Moon (not knowing but the REM song did not help us down here to feel much empathy for Kaufman). However, American Splendor works and flows just great for me as Spanish speaking European.
Story is not new, as some other user said here at IMDb here there is another loser flick, cult movie with an air of sophistication (to be found also in Sideways) that could get on my nerves.
However,I felt empathy for Pekar, I felt empathy for nerds, I felt empathy for Cleveland (and I wasn't under the effect of any kind of substance). It is very interesting to snorkel down into American subculture and discover things like this once in a while. Pekar, his world and his time were fascinating to me.
As far as the movie is concerned, I think the format is great. An innovative and refreshing mixture of some trendy and not-so styles, as comic-cartoon-movie mixture (trace back to Dick Tracy, Who framed Roger Rabbit, Cool World...) and documentary.
To me Giamatti's is shaping himself as a great actor specialized in somewhat sophisticated, characters drama, jazzy loser characters. I loved his work in Sideways, here in American Splendor he's a little bit too histrionic. The way he grunts or scratches his head seem a little bit forced to me. Excellent portrait of Pekar though (he's also a comic character after all) but I guess I prefer Giamatti making up rather than portraying.
7 out of 10 for a surprising movie.