American Splendor

The documentary directing team of Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman makes their narrative feature debut with the biographical comedy drama American Splendor . Harvey Pekar ( Paul Giamatti ) is a comic book writer inspired by the work of his friend Robert Crumb ( James Urbaniak ). Pekar writes his comics about the sad monotony of everyday life, based on his own life in Cleveland, OH, working as a file clerk at a veteran's hospital and spending his time reading books and listening to jazz. He meets up with Joyce Brabner ( Hope Davis ) and they enjoy a depressive relationship together. The filmmakers employ a combination of live-action film, video, and animation, including narration and commentary from the real-life Harvey Pekar . The screenplay was based on Pekar 's comic book series American Splendor , which he has been writing since 1976 on Dark Horse Comics, and the 1994 book-length comic Our Cancer Year , written by Pekar and Brabner . American Splendor won the Grand Jury Prize in the Dramatic Competition at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival . — Andrea LeVasseur