American Splendor (2003) – 7.1

An amusing but trifling affair that feels suspiciously like Ghost World Redux with a bit more visual flair; why it has garnered such lavish critical attention is truly baffling.  Paul Giametti, previously the most nameless ubiquitous secondary actor in Hollywood, plays Harvey Pekar, the real-life collaborator on the American Splendor comic book series illustrated by R. Crumb.  The film has a certain sweetness about it in spite of the relentlessly misanthropic posings of its hero, but in its second half, it succumbs unforgivably to that worst of Hollywood feel-good conventions, the cancer diagnosis.  Features several charming performances, including James Urbaniak (of Sex-and-the-City-shoe-fetish-guy fame) as Crumb and Hope Davis as Pekar’s wife.