Can you keep a secret? ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ is an indie gem due to a fearless performance by Melissa McCarthy. It’s based on a true story. Think of it as a heist film for the literary world. Director Marielle Heller made a big splash at Sundance in 2015 with her debut ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl.’ Her latest is not as visually stylish but it is just as gutsy. The film is an adaptation of Lee Israel’s memoir of the same title. She specialized in biographies and once landed on the New York Times bestseller list. She’s not a nice person and outwardly detests other people. The only love she displays is to her cat named Jersey. Although she is not a likable character, McCarthy makes her endearing with a tour de force performance.
The film is set in the early 1990s. Lee is a struggling author. Her agent Margorie (wonderfully played by Jane Curtin) cannot find a publisher for her latest project. She is having trouble paying her rent and scraping enough money together to take her cat Jersey to the vet. She also has a drinking problem. One of her favorite haunts is a gay bar in the East Village where she runs into Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant). She remembers his claim to fame is pissing in a coat closet at a literary party. They become fast friends and enjoy being drinking buddies. One of the themes of the film is loneliness and these two losers get comfort in drinking their troubles away at Manhattan bars.
One day Lee is at the New York Library doing research on another book about a dead celebrity named Fanny Brice. She discovers a personal letter by Brice wedged between the pages of the book. Realizing it might be worth something, she takes it to a bookstore where Anna (Dolly Wells) buys it from her for $75. She mentions that the letter would be worth more if it was more evocative. The light bulb goes off in Lee’s head. She decides to embark on using her writing talents to forge personal letters from well-known personalities like Noel Coward and Dorothy Parker. We are soon brought into this world of collectors and vintage bookshops in Manhattan. Her forgery caper soon runs into a snag when one of her Coward letters is questioned for authenticity. Soon the FBI is investigating her.
You would think that Lee would stop after hearing about the FBI probing her dishonest activities. She actually doesn’t feel bad about it. At one point she says, “I’m a better Dorothy Parker than Dorothy Parker.” Later on she turns to actually stealing real letters from university libraries and replacing them with fakes. Why should the audience care about her? The more we get to know Lee, the more we see how she has to navigate the male-dominated literary world. There is also a touching scene where she goes out to dinner with bookstore owner, Anna. It is sad how she doesn’t know how to get emotionally close to anyone. McCarthy conveys her frustration with society perfectly. She wants to keep doing what she loves which is writing but the world wants to sweep her under rug.
Maintaining the audience’s empathy for a character through their darkest moments takes talent. The reason ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ is getting so much attention is due to McCarthy’s career-best performance. That’s the skill of a good actor. When they can take an unlikable character and make the audience care about them. The film isn’t about forgiving Lee. It’s about understanding how she hit rock bottom. The film also makes a commentary about celebrity. Lee was deceiving rich collectors who wanted bragging rights for acquiring personal letters from famous dead people. McCarthy’s performance is guaranteed to earn her a Best Actress nomination and open new doors for more dramatic roles.
