DVD

The movie’s tagline is “Ordinary Life is Pretty Complex Stuff.” And the movie itself, with Paul Giamatti (Sideways) as Harvey Pekar, a file clerk at a Cleveland Veterans’ Hospital, is very good. Harvey creates a comic book based on his life, and he and his book hit a stride of popularity, which includes several appearances on Late Night with David Letterman. Things manage to take a downturn when he is diagnosed with testicular cancer. So he and his wife Joyce (Hope Davis, About Schmidt) decide to...write his plight into the comic as well. Harvey manages to beat the cancer into remission, and the movie ends with a party celebrating Harvey’s retirement from the hospital, surrounded by family and friends.

That’s it. That’s the movie. But there are so many creative accents added to the film that it really turns conventional filmmaking on its head. When Joyce decides to go to Ohio and meet Harvey, she gets to the train station, and in her anticipation, we see what she’s been seeing; his comic book interpretations. She (and we) experience 3 different illustrated interpretations of Harvey before she meets him in person. And his first words to her are some of the most memorable ones you’ll hear, they make a girl swoon! Or maybe not. The movie incorporates comic book storyboards into the film frame, reminiscent of what was done in Hulk, but in a much more obvious and, consequently, greater effect. The real Harvey provides narration through the movie. Harvey also provides detail and explains some of the scenes. Footage of Harvey’s appearances on the Letterman show is edited into the film, and we see it in between Giamatti both before and after his first appearance.