Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)

Directed by: Marielle Heller | 109 minutes | biography, comedy | Actors: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells, Ben Falcone, Gregory Korostishevsky, Jane Curtin, Stephen Spinella, Christian Navarro, Pun Bandhu, Erik LaRay Harvey, Brandon Scott Jones, Shae D’lyn, Rosal Colon, Anna Deavere Smith , Marc Evan Jackson

It is quite tempting to muse every now and then about the life of a writer. Install a classic typewriter, make a pitcher of coffee and spend the day just writing out your own fantasies. But it is often the dark sides of the profession that quickly come into play. You write some well-received books, publishers want more and more, and before you know it, you’ll end up in bookstore sales bins and your career will take off. The best you can possibly hope for is a short obituary in the newspaper after your death. Or you slowly gather yourself together and use your writing skills to forge letters from celebrities and earn a nice penny. Meet Lee Israel.

We are writing in the early 1990s. Hard to make ends meet, writer Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy) is forced to sell more and more personal belongings in order to pay her cat’s rent and medical bills. Meanwhile, she sees authors like Tom Clancy (writer of “pulp” as “Jack Ryan”) storm the best-seller lists, while her books end up in the drains of the better bookstores. With her new project, a biography about Fanny Brice, things don’t go well either, so Lee increasingly seeks refuge in alcohol.

Desperate to earn a nickel, she decides to sell a personal letter from Katharine Hepburn to a local bookstore. Surprised by the market behind these types of letters, she then decides to forge and sell letters from deceased celebrities, which quickly puts her out of financial trouble. Meanwhile, lonely Lee reunites with flamboyant Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant), with the two lonely souls steadily developing a special friendship. Life finally seems to be smiling at Israel again, until merchants start to question Lee’s letters.

Melissa McCarthy gained her fame mainly with comedic roles, but excels in ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ especially in the tragic. After a few seconds you forget that you are watching McCarthy as Israel, she is Lee Israel. Her Israel is lonely, depressed and has lost all connection with society. Although McCarthy is (of course) very witty at times, it is the tragedy of her character that sticks the most. It’s not for nothing that it earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, showing once again that the greatest comedians often hide an even better tragic role.

But ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ is not only McCarthy’s career highlight, the show is also quite brilliantly stolen by the great Richard E. Grant. From the moment his eccentric Jack steps into the film, you simply can’t help but love him, no matter how reprehensible some of his actions may be. Grant is hilarious, but cleverly manages to never let the tragedy that also lurks behind his character completely fade into the background.

And yet it goes too far to ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ can only be reduced to a sublimely acted biopic. The direction by Marielle Heller (who previously made ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl’) is excellent, the jazzy soundtrack wonderful and the script based on Israel’s book of the same name (also an Oscar nomination) extremely efficient. It’s nearly impossible not to develop a soft spot for Lee Israel throughout the film, no matter how morally reprehensible her behavior may be.

With that, ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ a very successful film. Humor and tragedy are almost perfectly balanced, McCarthy and Grant shine in the roles of their lives and the story, especially if you are not familiar with it, is very remarkable and entertaining. And the message the film conveys? Cheating is fun, but being honest lasts the longest. However?