Can You Ever Forgive Me?

For some reason, a local theater showed the trailer months and months ago. It hooked me instantly, and I’ve been dying to see the film ever since. While I was waiting impatiently for its release, about ten other movies starring Melissa McCarthy came out instead. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but I have reviewed two other Melissa McCarthy star vehicles just this summer, plus The Spy Who Dumped Me which reminded me so much of Spy and The Heat that I always (mis)remember McCarthy starring in that one, too.

This recent burst of McCarthy reviews me look like her biggest fan, but I’m not, really. True, I usually find her engaging and versatile. She has a special gift for transitioning from outrageous comedy in one scene to heartfelt tears in the next. But honestly, I haven’t even seen all of McCarthy’s movies. I’ve never seen a single episode of Mike & Molly, and I’ve actually only watched one season of Gilmore Girls all the way through. (I don’t remember which one. My sister was obsessed with the show at the time and forced the family to binge it over Thanksgiving. I’m pretty sure she and I got into a heated disagreement about whether it was unreasonable to be angry at someone for stealing a yacht, if that helps.)

My point is, I do like Melissa McCarthy, but I’m a far cry from her biggest fan despite the fact that I’ve recently reviewed so many of her movies.

The premise of the Can You Ever Forgive Me? is honestly what got my attention. Who wouldn’t want to watch the story of a published biographer (who has been on the New York Times Bestseller List) now reduced to a life of crime just to pay her back rent and help her sick cat? And she commits one of the most fascinating crimes there is, literary forgery. She embellishes signed letters from famous authors, then sells them as collectibles in eclectic book shops all across New York City. Her particular crime is so compelling because it’s like the antithesis of plagiarism (a lazy, unromantic offense). She gives other authors credit for her work! For a writer, the pain of that act ought to negate any legal offense!  She becomes a ghost writer for ghosts and makes enough money to buy cat medicine! Plus, this is a true story! I’d even heard of Lee Israel because of the Esquire profile she wrote of Katharine Hepburn, though (somehow) I knew nothing at all about her own life until I saw the irresistible trailer for this film.

Bohemian Rhapsody is selling out, and I plan to see that, too, but (not to knock the achievements of Freddie Mercury and Queen), this seems like a far more tantalizing story to me.

“That’s because you’re a writer,” my husband pointed out. That’s true. I am a novelist, who has not known great commercial success. I also spent some time as an academic who did my share of archival research in the rare books library. I also have a lot of trouble keeping my room clean.  (It’s a horrible OCD cycle of madness.  If I don’t pick up something right away, it becomes germy and dangerous, and then I’m frightened to touch it later.)  Basically, this movie is about me, except I’m not an alcoholic, I could afford cat medicine, if pressed, and I don’t have a best friend like Richard E. Grant.  (Who’s that lucky?)

What a supporting performance Grant gives as Israel’s shifty associate Jack Hock! McCarthy is magnificent, but Grant plays a character who is larger-than-life to a Dickensian degree. I honestly think he should win an Oscar for what is the finest performance I’ve ever seen him give. I’d be fine with McCarthy winning an Oscar, too, though I’ve seen some other fantastic performances by a lead actress this year, while I’ve seen nothing to match Grant’s supporting turn here.

The Good:
The plot of this story captivated me so much that I literally watched the whole thing leaning forward, my entire body tense with excitement. After the movie, I reflected, “It was kind of odd that I had that reaction.” I mean, this isn’t a suspense thriller. I was going to say, “There are no lives at stake,” but then I realized that isn’t true. Precisely what makes this movie so compelling is that there are lives at stake. People are mortal, time is limited, and survival can be tough. So in any story about people struggling to scrape by, their lives are precisely what’s at stake.

The film presents us with a protagonist who is absolutely desperate and usually miserable. When the story starts, Lee is at a low ebb. She can’t hold a job. Her agent won’t return her calls. Her most recent book is not selling. She’s months behind on her rent. She doesn’t have a decent coat. The only person in her life is her cat. And her cat is sick.  The vet won’t help until she pays on her outstanding balance. Her apartment is filled with bugs. She has very little food. Everywhere she goes, people openly mock her and her work.  Of course, she drinks.

It’s really hard not to feel for this woman. I could identify with her frustrations as a writer. But honestly, anybody should be able to feel for her as a human being. McCarthy plays the role perfectly. She’s a very believable mix of demoralized, angry, humiliated, and desperate.

And the movie makes it very easy to sympathize (even empathize) with Lee, yet it doesn’t shy away from showing us her own flaws and failings. (I personally spent early scenes wanting to tell her frankly, “You are drinking your cat’s vet bill.” I mean, when desperate, she can’t scrape together more than fourteen dollars in cash, yet she manages to afford copious amounts of liquor twenty-four seven.  I’ll grant, though, that if you can come up with just enough money to feel your poverty, alcohol is the best way to splurge–unless you’re still young enough to get a pick-me-up from a Happy Meal.)

In some ways, Lee Israel is her own worst enemy. But that doesn’t mean the deck isn’t stacked against her. Despite her own issues with mental health, alcoholism, and getting along with humans, Israel makes an undeniable point when she rails to her agent that being a one-time best-selling author ought to mean something as she tries to get a relatively modest advance for her next book. But it doesn’t.

Jane Curtin is absolutely terrific as her agent, a character given a surprisingly sympathetic portrayal. (After the movie, I mused to my husband, “She must have stayed her agent and helped her publish this memoir.” I don’t know that for sure, but I can think of no other reason that such an initially unhelpful and critical person would be portrayed as a truth speaker and decent human being, relatively tolerant of Lee’s abuse. Of course, I don’t know. The agent could be a composite character for all I know.  I’ll have to read the book.  I’m intrigued.) I do really love Jane Curtin here, though. You almost never see her in a dramatic (as opposed to comedic) role.  She’s great.

One thing that comes across very clearly in the film (and even in the trailer) is the frustrating hypocrisy of the literary world. Books written by Lee Israel won’t sell, but people pay plenty of money for Israel’s writing (and shower it with praise) when they think they are buying the work of a literary star with the name recognition of Noël Coward or Dorothy Parker.

What puzzles me is why Lee Israel can’t seem to understand, to accept that people will not embrace her or her writing if she continues to make no effort whatsoever to win them over. In an ideal world, good writing should stand on its own merit. But with the disheartening life she leads, how could she persist so long in the delusion that we live in an ideal world?

Tellingly, the thing that trips her up relates to her own inability to put on a face crafted for public life. Lee doesn’t (perhaps isn’t able to) distinguish between her own innate sense of identity and the face she presents to the world.  She is who she is, and perhaps she doesn’t give enough thought to how carefully others craft their public personas.

The story is thought-provoking, briskly paced, always engaging, and joyfully coherent, for which I have to credit director Marielle Heller and screenwriters Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty (who also wrote the book for Avenue Q) who adapted Israel’s own memoir of the same name.  One delightful aspect of the story is how much of its content involves the struggles of gay and lesbian characters, yet this is not used to sell the movie in a cheap, manipulative way.  We learn who people are by watching them live, and each character is fascinating and unique.

My husband said that while he himself did not identify with the frustrated writer’s character or her journey, he got a thrill out of seeing a film that he knew I could relate to so completely. Honestly, you don’t need a a background in writing or literature to enjoy this movie. Its central focus on the humanity of the characters should make Can You Ever Forgive Me? pretty compelling to any viewer.

Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Melissa McCarthy:
This is the best non-comedic performance I’ve seen Melissa McCarthy give. (And I’ve seen St. Vincent, so it’s not like I’ve never seen her in a drama before.)  Granted, there are moments of comedy, but Lee Israel is in a pretty dark place through most (arguably even all) of this story.

Playing an impoverished alcoholic, she’s extremely un-glamorous for ninety-nine percent of the film, and McCarthy is a radiant beauty when she wants to be.  But even when Lee Israel’s life becomes pathetic, we find it pitiable rather than off-putting because McCarthy teases out the humanity in the character. In comedies, McCarthy has an instinct for finding a natural time and way to cry, even when playing someone who is over-the-top and relentlessly zany. She brings a similar humanity to Lee Israel, revealing the quiet heart of a woman undergoing adversity.  So even when things are grim, we always want to look, and we look with compassion and even understanding.

One thing that particularly impresses me is the way she develops a nervous tic in one eye just before selling her first out-and-out forgery. We see this same tic again in moments of anxiety. It’s so subtle, so slight, so it looks natural, real.  That can’t be easy to do.

Her speech just before her sentencing would make a perfect clip for awards shows, and there is another moment, as crushing as the ending of The Hunger Games, that would be too spoilery to mention. But my favorite moment is her silent ride on the subway, as she contemplates selling her first forged document.

To be someone who genuinely cares about words and writing and literary legacies, and then to be reduced to committing such a crime…

McCarthy does so much in this scene without saying a single word.

I also love her painful humiliation when everyone starts saying how badly her apartment needs to be cleaned. I could definitely relate to that.

Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Richard E. Grant:
I hope Richard E. Grant wins Best Supporting Actor. I first became aware of his talents when my college friends and I discovered the glorious weirdness of Hudson Hawk, and I’ve never seen him give a bad performance. But his turn as Jack Hock is something special. Dickensian is the best way to describe the character. I can’t tell if Jack was written that way by Israel or if Grant’s interpretation should get all the credit for this larger-than-life quality. His Jack Hock reminded me of someone who might jump off the pages of Oliver Twist. (And actually, in his final scenes, he reminded me a little of Alec Guinness who did play Fagin in one screen adaptation.)

As with McCarthy, Grant really doesn’t have one outstanding moment.  Instead, his every moment in the movie is outstanding. And that cigarette is a wonderful prop, an extension of the character. Jack is just such a presence, and his trajectory seems so perfectly crafted (for an Oscar win especially) for someone based on a real person. (Just a few minutes after he was introduced, I realized where his character was headed.)  He’s like the ultimate character, and yet, he’s strangely, intimately real and human at the same time.

I really love the moment when he asks what Lee’s going to do with the money and suggests a celebration. He’s so infectiously gleeful. I like his final scene, too. The contrast is quite powerful and shows off Grant’s range.

I hope he wins an Oscar.  The only other supporting performance this year that even seems deserving to me is Chalamet’s (and maybe Adam Driver as the real fake Ron), but, of course, about three thousand films with Oscar hopes will come out in the next two months, so I may change my mind.

Grant deserves an Oscar, though.  Without him, the movie would not be the same.

Best Scene:
This part really allows McCarthy to show tremendous range. Her extremely awkward dinner date reveals a side of her we haven’t seen before (which is something that keeps happening again and again. This woman could be a dodecahedron the way McCarthy plays her). Oddly, this is the one part of the movie when I thought, “I could imagine Julianne Moore playing this role.” I know she was originally supposed to star in the movie a long time ago before McCarthy took over, but in most scenes McCarthy makes the character so much her own that it’s impossible even to imagine someone else in the role.

That isn’t the best scene, though. I mention it because it shows us a side of Lee Israel we haven’t seen until then.  Almost every scene reveals something new about Lee Israel to us.  I can’t decide on a best scene.

Her rant in her agent’s office is great, but not the best scene.

Both McCarthy and Grant have millions of amazing scenes. (That can’t be true, but it feels like millions.)

What sticks with me is her humiliation over her dirty apartment, then the way he helps her clean it. This part involves no writing or selling or criminal activity at all, yet somehow it feels like the very heart of the story.

Best Action Sequence:
The opening sequences of the film are all action as we accompany Lee Israel through her depressing day. I find her behavior at the party quite compelling and revealing.  Her attempt to move from forgery to outright theft is extremely tense, too.

Best Scene Visually:
Entirely because both Lee and Jack have undergone such visible changes, their final scene together is quite powerful.

Another unforgettable image is what is lurking under Lee’s bed.

The Negatives:

My husband said he did find the film slow at moments.  I was thoroughly engaged the entire time, though I do find the scenes McCarthy shares with Curtin better than some others, the scenes with Anna (Dolly Wells) better than others, as well, and the scenes with Richard E. Grant incomparably amazing.  Once Grant shows up in the movie, there are certainly no slow moments.

Watching, I did find some of Lee’s decisions near the end beyond poor.  Once she feels threatened, her behavior becomes baffling.  Clearly she is not a well person.  Her thinking is not sound.  The movie does make us wonder how much of the memoir involves fictionalization by Israel.  I mean, was the real Jack Hock as amazingly larger-than-life as the character Israel created?  Was her actual agent so insightful and kind?  Did that hilarious moment at the end really happen?  I’m dying to read the memoir now.

I did find it funny that Lee basically learns the same lesson that worked for Louisa May Alcott.  To succeed as an author, you must make yourself a character and write about the actual, meaningful experiences in your life.  Is this the only lesson a female American writer can learn, the Little Women lesson?  My mother keeps telling me that I need to learn from Alcott’s example, to write about my real life, but I think what she means is that she wants me to write Little Women. 

I guess I don’t really have anything negative to say about this film.

Overall:
So often movies with an Oscar-baity star role feel almost deceitfully indulgent, like we’ve been tricked into watching not a movie for our enjoyment but instead two hours of an actor trying desperately to prove himself. That is not the case here. Almost every scene in the film is a powerful showcase of Melissa McCarthy’s talent and versatility, but it’s all in service of the story, which is compelling and well written.

If you’re a writer, you should definitely watch Can You Ever Forgive Me.  Even if you’re not a writer, you’ll probably enjoy the film.  It’s worth seeing for Richard E. Grant’s amazing, Oscar-worthy supporting performance alone!