Tonight I watched "Can You Ever Forgive Me"? (2018) starring Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant. I know I said in my review of "The Favourite" that I wasn't gonna watch any more new movies, but this one sounded like it might actually be good. It had an interesting premise, too, so I gave it a shot and this time I wasn't disappointed. You might have seen it since it was recently released and was also nominated for several Oscars, but I'll give you the basics of the story anyhow.
McCarthy plays Lee Israel, a writer who once had minor success writing biographies of old movie stars. Her career is on the downswing now, though, and she can't even hold onto her side job writing copy for some anonymous firm. It doesn't help that she is an alcoholic and an unpleasant person to begin with. Her literary agent (Jane Curtin) avoids her phone calls. She is also three months behind on the rent of her fly-infested apartment. As the movie opens, she is about to hit rock bottom. Then two things happen and her luck begins to change.
The first thing that happens is that she meets a kindred soul. She has no friends in her life, but by chance, while sitting at the corner bar, in walks Richard E. Grant, playing a flamboyant but shifty gay man. Grant is a fantastic actor who nails this part. The character is named Jack Hock, a real life person who Lee Israel met at a writer's party sometime in the past. Hock is not a writer, but a con artist. He is worn out now, pushing 60 but still using cocaine and looking for any angle he can find to avoid living a real life. Like Lee, he is also an alcoholic. They bond in this way, and as Hock is an unrepentant criminal - albeit a low level, non-violent one - he inspires Lee to let go of her last vestiges of any pretense of respectability. He does not do this overtly. She is a Type A personality and cannot be dictated to. Rather, his influence is subliminal. Merely by hanging out with him, at a point when her life is in the trash can, she absorbs his devil-may-care attitude.
The second thing that happens is that she discovers a letter in an old book she is reading for research on a proposed biography of Fanny Brice. The letter is from Brice herself. Israel can't believe her good fortune, so she steals the letter from the research library and takes it home. Her cat is sick and needs medicine. She knows that there a multiple collector's shops in the city who will pay good money for literary artifacts, like......say........an old letter from a once famous comedienne like Fanny Brice.
She sells the letter to a collector, pays for her cat's medicine, and then gets an idea.
"H'mmmm......I'm a writer. What if I were to forge these kinds of letters, from old movie stars or New York literary types, letters that were written to their peers, their confidantes"?
She doesn't say those words aloud or think them; the above quoted sentence is just me getting inside her head, but it's the gist of her thoughts when the wheels start to turn as she forms her scheme.
Soon she has her rent all paid up and extra money left over. She takes Richard E. Grant out to dinner and confides to him what she is up to. Because he himself is a schemer, you keep expecting Grant to double cross Israel, but he never does. His presence in her life will eventually cause complications though. Ultimately, she has no one to blame but herself, and I don't want to give spoilers, but one of the most revealing scenes of the movie comes late. She has to make a self-assessment (you will see why), and even at this point she cannot take full responsibility for her actions.
She is a tragic figure and would be entirely unlikeable were it not for her underlying awareness of the immorality of the criminal and utterly false lifestyle she has jumped into, letting go of all self worth.
Melissa McCarthy shows major league acting chops here as the dowdy Lee Israel, living in her filthy apartment but still aspiring to literary glory no matter how she attains it.
Richard E. Grant steals the show, however. It is his character that provides the criminal impetus, the anarchic energy, for Ms. Israel to chuck all convention and dive headfirst into the risky business of being a forger. Writing is all she knows how to do. If she can't get paid legitimately, she will go the other route. It's a true story, and it might be a depressing one were it not played straight by McCarthy and Grant, and a top notch supporting cast including an actress named Dolly Wells who plays a bookstore owner who befriends Lee Israel, leading to the possibility of a more intimate relationship.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "Can You Forgive Me"? There is not a lot of plot development, it is kind of a "point A to point B to point C" story that you know will play itself out in a certain way, but the movie's strength is in it's acting performances and in the steady direction.
Grant and McCarthy hold the whole thing together. Wells and the other players provide supportive color.
Give it a view, I say, and I don't say that about too many current pictures. ////
Today was a Hot One - 103 degrees! Now that's a good start to Summer. Let's hope it continues.
We had super-good singing in church, hope your day was good too, see you in the morn.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo tons of love. :):)
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