Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Composite Score: 86.33
Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells, Ben Falcone, Gregory Korostishevsky, Jane Curtin, Stephen Spinella, Christian Navarro, and Marc Evan Jackson
Director: Marielle Heller
Writers: Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty
Genres: Biography, Comedy, Crime, Drama
MPAA Rating: R for language including some sexual references, and brief drug use
Box Office: $12.44 million worldwide
My take on Watching This Film:
Can You Ever Forgive Me? is the film adaptation from director Marielle Heller and writers Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty of Lee Israel’s memoir of the same name about the notorious author’s criminal activities in the early 1990s, forging and stealing letters of dead authors and playwrights in an attempt to restore her career as an author. Melissa McCarthy plays the abrasive and desperate Israel across from Richard E. Grant as her accomplice, Jack Hock, a gay acquaintance who has fallen on hard times himself. The film follows the duo’s odd and occasionally unbelievable exploits until their discovery and arrest. Both McCarthy and Grant received Oscar nominations for their performances (Lead Actress and Supporting Actor, respectively) alongside the film’s script for Adapted Screenplay.
While the story of a washed-up author and her gay sometimes friend selling forgeries to the world of autograph and letter collectors makes for an interesting enough story, it’s really the performances from the pair that make the film so watchable. If you take too many steps back and start to examine some of the implications of the film, its content, and production process, you might realize that it’s not really doing a whole lot to condemn anything that Israel actually did, which may or may not work for you, and that’s why McCarthy and Grant are so important to making this film work – they allow you to forget that these might not be people worth rooting for. Grant’s portrayal of Hock is that of a gregarious but never quite stereotypical Bohemian, frequenting drag clubs, making up stories about his living situation, and prioritizing himself and his drug use over everything else. On the surface, he shouldn’t be a sympathetic character, but Richard E. Grant brings a brilliant humanity to Jack that keeps you thinking about just how close anyone is to falling into similarly difficult circumstances. He’s funny, grating, lovable, and pitiful all at once, and somehow, he’s able to make it work. Likewise, McCarthy plays Lee Israel with all the abrasiveness and social ineptitude that such a person could be expected to have, but she also manages to imbue Israel with a sense of longing for acceptance that is universal in all of us, making her a believable character worth exploring more deeply.
Technically, I have to praise the film’s script and direction. It moves at a steady pace and consistently feeds the audience a healthy balance of wit, drama, facts, cynicism, and hope. Every moment feels intentional to telling the story and establishing the characters, and this is helped along by Marielle Heller’s commitment to telling the story in her own unique style. Between the jazzy score from her consistent collaborator Nate Heller and the film’s surprisingly cinematic feel, every frame is given weight and every shot feels important. It’s not as grand or showy as some other films of its era, but it’s still a film that feels like it was made for the big screen, unlike so many of its modern biopic counterparts, which feel increasingly designed for a streaming service.
The strong leading performances from Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant are bolstered by a well-written script and solid direction from Marielle Heller to make Can You Ever Forgive Me? into a refreshingly unique and excellent take on the biopic, earning it a spot among the Greatest Films of All Time. Some of the film’s optics might not sit perfectly with every audience member, but the overall feel of the film and its great acting can overcome much of that hesitation. Currently, you can rent this film on most streaming services if you’d like to check it out.