pon their first meeting, Harvey Pekar (Paul Giamatti) tells Joyce Brabner (Hope Davis) that he’s had a vasectomy. Giamatti’s Pekar is a disgruntled, ever-cranky nebbish in the tradition of Woody Allen’s late-70s onscreen persona (specifically, in his two best films, Annie Hall and Manhattan) and, more recently, Seinfeld co-creator Larry David on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. He’s a man terminally compromised and constantly at odds with those insurmountable factors contributing to his vague, unrelenting misery. These men seem to believe that only they can perceive the inherent absurdity and unfairness of their society, and it’s this unshakeable notion that leaves them socially paralyzed, unable to function normally within the confines of their culture.

Though Pekar obviously chose to eliminate his ability to procreate, impotence is what’s at the heart of Shari Springer Bergman and Robert Pulcini’s American Splendor. And not just any old form of impotence, mind you, but this very specific brand of perceived inferiority resulting in paranoid insecurity (Harvey’s vasectomy only serves as the literal representation of this prevailing theme; it’d probably be too obvious a metaphor, in fact, if it hadn’t actually happened). Harvey is, perhaps, the anti-Rocky. He’s the perpetual underdog, but rather than actively challenge the obstacles in his way to a happier, more contented life, he is able only to bitch and moan about them and bitterly resent those who’ve managed to forge some sort of happiness for themselves. What American Splendor examines is how Pekar, not unlike Woody Allen in this respect either, forged a life, career, and, eventually, some minor satisfaction himself out of his ability to articulately express his pent-up angst through art.

American Splendor takes its name from Pekar’s autobiographical comic book, apparently chock-full of his signatures gripes and quirks. Like most biopics, it sticks to the high (or in some cases, low) points in Pekar’s life: the birth of American Splendor; Harvey’s relationship with Joyce, whom he marries shortly after the two meet in person following some mutual correspondence by mail; his confrontational appearances plugging his comic on David Letterman’s show; his bout with cancer, which leads to a comic entitled Our Cancer Year, co-written by Harvey and Joyce; and, finally, their adoption of a little girl named Danielle, with the three living happily, if modestly, ever after together. It’s entertaining enough and quite funny in spots, but, on the whole, it feels slight, like the Cliff Notes version of a Pekar biography.

I’ve never read any of Pekar’s work, though the film serves as a fine introduction for anyone interested. I am, however, familiar with comic artist Robert Crumb, an initial animator for the American Splendor comic, played in the film by James Urbaniak. Crumb was the subject of American Splendor’s clearest cinematic forebear, Terry Zwigoff’s excellent, eponymous 1995 documentary. Berman and Pulcini follow Zwigoff’s lead, using footage of the real Harvey and Joyce in addition to the central fictional recreation of Pekar’s life story.

As indelible as Zwigoff’s film was for its off-kilter portrait of Crumb and his bizarre family background, the sporadically inserted interview footage in American Splendor adds up to some decidedly mixed results. It's the real Harvey and Joyce—and not their dramatic representatives—that make the film as interesting as it is. This is largely because they appear, at once, far more complex and multi-dimensional than the versions of them played by Giamatti and Davis (this is truer of Giamatti’s Harvey than Davis’s Joyce, as her characterization is considerably more thoughtful and nuanced than his, and, thus, comes closer to capturing the real-life Joyce than his does the real-life Harvey). As a result, the real footage ultimately undermines the narrative, stealing away any dramatic weight that it might have otherwise possessed. To put it bluntly, it leaves American Splendor rather, well, impotent itself.