Harvey Pekar - celebrated strip cartoon anti-superhero and hospital filing clerk - has a world view that makes Victor Meldrew look positively starry-eyed.

Everything and everyone is against him - from the supermarket queue that shrinks the quickest to his bizarrely happy-with-life co-workers and friends.

Unfortunately, there isn't an outlet for the world-weary outpourings of a self-confessed cynic who could fret for the Land of the Free.

Until, that is, he chances upon greeting card artist and up-and-coming radical cartoonist Robert Crumb (Urbaniak).

Pekar hits upon the idea of the talented Crumb illustrating his bitter take on a world out to belittle, emasculate and crush him.

American Spendor - a truthful celebration of the curmudgeon - becomes a cult hit informed by esoteric jazz and the decline of American culture. And new jellybean flavours.

Directors Berman and Pulcini ingeniously weave straightforward biography featuring Giamatti as Pekar with cartoon sequences based on the original strip.

However, they also mix in footage of the real Pekar filmed in his hometown of Cleveland (Stockton-on-Tees without the glamour) with newsreel of his appearances on the likes of Letterman.

Despite Giamatti's gloomy tour de force, it appears the real Pekar was even more of a misery guts than his doleful celluloid alter-ego.

"He doesn't think sunshine and flowers sell," says his equally eccentric wife Joyce, whose sardonic nature is beautifully captured by Davis.

It helps if you have a working knowledge of Pekar's off-kilter world but the inspired movie engages through its dark wackiness and unashamed honesty.

Just when Pekar's jaded take on all and sundry might be becoming too much he takes an unexpected swerve into a fulfilling domesticity.

Something Victor Meldrew never quite managed. American Splendid.

Tim Evans