Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Marielle Heller, 2018)
Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells, Ben Falcone, Gregory Korostishevsky, Jane Curtin, Stephen Spinella, Christian Navarro, Anna Deavere Smith. Screenplay: Nicole Holofcener, Jeff Whitty. Cinematography: Brandon Trost. Production design: Stephen H. Carter. Film editing: Anne McCabe. Music: Nate Heller.
Malcontents make for good movie material -- just look at the success of Todd Phillips's Joker, a current box office hit despite decidedly mixed reviews. Not that Lee Israel, the subject of Can You Ever Forgive Me? has much in common with the psychotic character played (some would say overplayed) by Joaquin Phoenix. Lee is just a little larcenous, not murderous. But she has a similarly sour view of humankind, which she feels has rejected her talents as a writer. She looks to get even with the literary world -- and to shore up her dwindling income -- by forging letters from the likes of Fanny Brice, Noël Coward, and Dorothy Parker. And she has just enough talent to bring it off. Melissa McCarthy is superb in the role, which earned her an Oscar nomination; she knows when to soften Lee's hard edges, so that we don't lose complete sympathy for her. And it helps that she has the fine character actor Richard E. Grant, who also got an Oscar nomination, to play off of: Grant's seedy gay layabout, Jack Hock, is just a few moral levels below Lee, making him the perfect foil for her character. Can You Ever Forgive Me? is only Marielle Heller's second film as a director, and it's nicely paced, except for a few moments when it feels as if something has been left on the cutting-room floor. The introduction of Anna Deavere Smith as Elaine, Lee's friend and apparently her former lover, seems to come out of nowhere and linger there awkwardly. But Heller also handles the sexual tension that develops between Lee and Anna (Dolly Wells), the bookseller who buys Lee's first forgery, with subtlety: We sense Anna's quiet disappointment when Lee walks away from her shy attempt to make a move. Can You Forgive Me? feels a little ragged in its resolution, as if the film has run out of story to tell once Lee has been caught, and it ends with the usual title summaries of what happened to the real-life Lee and Jack, a crutch that biographical films too often rely on. But it's full of witty moments and performers who make the most of them.