While you may often wonder what makes the willowy Davis so mopey, she is not a fascinating creature. She's not openly sensual enough for that. Neither is she a waif, at least, but then she lacks the man's-woman directness that makes Helen Hunt appealing. (Hunt is among the least girlish American movie stars ever; she makes even Cameron Diaz seem coy.) Davis is there and not there, but not in a way that makes audiences wonder where she might be instead. Because it doesn't develop the wife's side of the marriage, The Secret Lives of Dentists seems protracted by an hour; it would have made a wonderful short.

Joyce wouldn't have to be fascinating but she's in the movie too much not to have more dimensions. She needed either to be a cartoon or a woman. It would have given the movie depth to suggest what it is about her that Pekar can't reach or comprehend--what gave her that stony look of forbearance in the documentary footage. It's odd that a movie co-directed by a woman wouldn't have got past the comic-book-loving boys' view of girls as appendages. Davis is very good, but the assignment raises more expectations than it allows her to fulfill.

All that said, the experience of naturalism at an American movie is so rare that the movie almost feels like a cleansing. In that respect it couldn't be truer to Pekar's beliefs as a narrative artist. And though the setting is grungy and it may seem balky to a lot of people not to be prompted for movie-ish emotions, Berman and Pulcini also shape American Splendor enough that it's enjoyable right on the surface. Packaging observations isn't the only way to make them entertaining.

You can find this review and a lot besides at The Kitchen Cabinet.

Alan Dale is author of Comedy Is a Man in
Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies.