McCarthy and Grant are a comic duo in an otherwise intriguing little thriller more misogynistic than merry.
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Grade: A-
Director: Marielle Heller (The Diary of a Teenage Girl)
Screenplay: Nicole Holofcener (Enough Said), Jeff Whitty
Cast: Melissa McCarthy (Life of the Party), Richard E. Grant (Logan)
Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hr 46 min
By: John DeSando
“I'm a 51-year-old who likes cats better than people.” Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy)
With a truck load of high-octane Oscar-baiting American films like A Star is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody, it’s refreshing to experience a small comic-thriller like Can You Ever Forgive Me to remember what most European films are like: character driven. Those are films without much CGI and with much sparkling dialogue from actors who enjoy the words rather than the nominations that may follow.
The true-life story of writer and literary forger Lee Israel, a lesbian who had some success forging letters from literati like Dorothy Parker and Noel Coward until she was caught, is embodied by Melissa McCarthy, playing an over-weight, misanthropic alcoholic who has written some well-received. biographies but now is in writer’s block.
Tom Clancy is depicted at a Village party as saying the block was invented by writers to justify their laziness. So much for a sweet story about writing.
McCarthy will make you forget her brilliant comic turn and Oscar-nominated role in Bridesmaids as she shows the depressed side of a writer who nevertheless comes through with some witty lines.
On her way to a good living forging she is aided by best friend and fellow alcoholic Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant), a character and actor playing admirable second-banana to Lee’s sardonic reality. Together they are fun fraudsters until he turns state’s evidence on her. When the two are together at a gay bar, Julius’s (the actual bar where Lee hung out), I get whiffs of the old screwball comedy where insults quickly parried, are true comedy.
No grand moments appear in this little caper movie, just sweet moments between Lee, the booksellers she defrauds, her loveable cat, and naughty Jack. When she awkwardly deflects the romantic vibe from a sweet bookseller, McCarthy reveals a vulnerable misfit who is nonetheless charming in her loneliness. As I said, Europeans love this kind of slow, character-driven thriller.
You will, too.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
