Review: Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Lee Israel isn't exactly pleasant company, so it's a testament to not only Melissa McCarthy but her partners-in-crime, actor Richard E. Grant, screenwriters Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty, and director Marielle Heller that she proves a most endearing and sympathetic curmudgeon in the richly textured dramedy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Lee Israel was a real-life writer, once a celebrated magazine journalist and author of several biographies. Unlike fellow author Tom Clancy, who is pulling in multimillion-dollar paychecks ("Oh, to be a white man who doesn't even know he's full of crap," she cracks), Lee has fallen on hard times. She's 51, alcoholic, three months behind on rent for the fly-infested apartment that she lives in with her beloved but ailing cat, suffering from writer's block, and trying to get an advance from her publisher (Jane Curtin) for a biography of vaudeville comedian Fanny Brice that she's working on. Her publisher tells her in no uncertain terms that the public isn't exactly clamouring for a biography of Brice. It doesn't help that Lee is so good at disappearing behind her subjects that the paying public have no clue who she is, and that her personality is so prickly that she's burned bridges within the industry. Either she has to be a nicer person, her publisher says, or she has to take the time to make a name for herself.

Desperate for some money to pay for her cat's vet bills, Lee starts selling some of her prized possessions, including a framed letter from Katharine Hepburn as well as a letter by Brice that she alights upon whilst doing research in a library. When a local book seller named Anna (Dolly Wells) offhandedly mentions that personal letters with more engaging content command higher prices, Lee gets an idea to start forging letters by luminaries such as Noel Coward, Marlene Dietrich, and Dorothy Parker. Her scheme is shockingly successful...until it's not.

With her acerbic and whiskey-soaked one-liners, Lee might be a less nihilistic Dorothy Parker and she meets her Oscar Wilde in the form of Jack Hock (Grant), an impish and mischievous life force whose flamboyance and positivity belie his dire straits. He's the only one to penetrate her misanthropic carapace, and the bond they form is genuinely poignant, made all the more so by the fact that it is presented with very little sentimentality. The same goes for Lee's blossoming relationship with Anna, which demonstrates what a difficulty it is for Lee to be vulnerable. In many ways, this is what made her so perfect as a forger - she was talented enough to replicate other voices, but she was too scared for her own voice to be judged.

There's a piercing melancholic undertow throughout the film, emphasised by the jazz standards which Lee herself loved. A dark enchantment envelops the striking New York imagery, more than hinting at the AIDS crisis that had claimed so many in the gay community. When Lee wonders if she should confide the details of her scheme to Jack, he replies, "Who would I tell? All my friends are dead." The line may be delivered lightly, but the weight of it hits. Can You Ever Forgive Me? celebrates those who didn't have the luxury of being able to take things for granted, those who struggled because of their gender or their sexual orientation, and those who did whatever they had to do to survive.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Directed by: Marielle Heller

Written by: Nicole Holofcener, Jeff Whitty

Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells, Jane Curtin, Anna Deavere Smith, Stephen Spinella, Ben Falcone, Shae D'Lyn, Michael Cyril Creighton, Kevin Carolan, Marc Evan Jackson