Forging a Fine Film
Melissa McCarthy basically elevates anything she ever does. If it is a mediocre situation comedy, she makes it sweeter and funnier. If it’s a lowest common denominator gross out comedy film, she makes it palatable. And if it is a higher-level movie of the same type, like “Bridesmaids”, she pushes it to excellence.
And now when she gets to sink her teeth into something substantial like the new “Can You Ever Forgive Me”, she seems a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination. The film has gotten absolute raves from other reviewers, and while I think it is a very good film filled with a few great performances rather than a great movie itself, there is no quibbling with the depth and quality of McCarthy’s performance.
Based on a true story, and staying mostly close to it, “Can You Ever Forgive Me” tells the story of Lee Israel, a reasonably successful writer of biographies of famous women in the 70’s and 80s, one of which makes the New York Times bestseller list. She falls on hard times as her audience shrinks, her ideas evaporate, and her prickly personality provides challenges.
Israel is a rather unpleasant character, reclusive and guarded, and it is perhaps telling of her personality that her closest relationship is with her cat Jersey, who of course is as self-absorbed as most cats. Israel is unkempt, drinks a whole lot, and gets fired from a hated job she has taken to make ends meets as her career founders.
It takes some expert work from McCarthy to make this character in any way sympathetic, and it probably would have helped me feel a little more that way if I held the affection for cats that many do. But despite that, McCarthy’s nuanced portrayal of a lonely and troubled soul is more than impressive. The cat becomes key to the story, since Jersey falls ill, and Lee can’t afford her treatment, which fuels her desperation to make some quick cash.
The scheme she eventually embraces begins when she sells off a treasured personal letter from Katherine Hepburn, and now knows there is a market for such things. Then while doing research on her slow-moving project on Fanny Brice, she stumbles upon a personal letter from the vaudeville star, and steals it from the library. Because the content is rudimentary, she only gets a small offer when she tries to sell it.
But when she forges some snappier and more personal language onto it, the price shoots up. The bookshop she first sells the cooked-up, or at least souped-up, letters to is owned by Anna (Dolly Wells, quite good), who admires Israel’s previous work and eventually tries to form a relationship, which like all the others in her life, Israel walks away from.
But one relationship that she gives a half a chance has already begun, with Jack Hock, who she meets in a bar early on. Hock is played by familiar face Richard E. Grant, and his turn as Jack, a gay grifter with a substance abuse habit that dwarfs even Lee’s, is every bit as impressive as McCarthy’s. A charming British cad with a twinkle in his blue eyes, Jack maneuvers his way through Manhattan with no visible means of support, and apparently, no residence.
The two have an unusual alliance, mostly as drinking buddies (Lee is also gay) trading snarky banter. Most of their time together is spent in bars, with an occasional foray into practical jokes. The two develop a tenuous trust that Lee, of course, is slow to embrace.
Like most movies set there, Manhattan is a character in itself. There are a few Woody Allenesque pastiches of cityscapes included by director Marielle Heller, skillfully working her third feature film. Among other qualities, she directs the well-formed bit parts nicely, from Lee’s landlord, to an arrogant book store manager that Lee tries to sell books to early in the film.
There is good work also by Jane Curtin as Lee’s blunt and distant agent, Stephen Spinnella as the collectables dealer where Lee takes much of her business, including the Noel Coward letters that prove to be her undoing, and Anna Deveare Smith as Lee’s former lover, yet another person Lee couldn’t commit to.
McCarthy covers all the bases in her role. She is so naturally funny that it enlivens the darkest parts of her personality. You can see her trepidation as she starts out on her devious path, but when the money is rolling in, she is energized by the creativity of finding the right old typewriters to craft the notes, but more so by the fact that in channeling the likes of Dorothy Parker and Coward, she finds a voice. She has never before written in her own voice, and this sort of does it. At one point she acidly points out that she “does Parker better than Parker”.
As the scheme slowly disintegrates, so does the relationship between Lee and Jack, which only escalates the performances of McCarthy and Grant. Flawed and vulnerable in concert, the two try and keep the wolves from the door as long as they possibly can.
Once the jig is up, McCarthy’s Lee has her tour de force in court, a scene that by itself could have elevated an ordinary performance to Oscar level. But she has been anything but ordinary all along, and her unapologetic and touching monologue is riveting.
“Can You Ever Forgive Me” is such a perfect title for the memoir that Lee Israel wrote, the basis for the movie, and a perfect synopsis of the story. Both the main character Lee, and her running mate Jack, have so many things that the need to ask forgiveness for, but they don’t much have it in them to try too hard to actually ask. They are comfortably uncomfortable in their own skin.
In the wrong hands, this fine film could have been a downer. But we are far away from the wrong hands in this case. Small part caper film, large part character study, “Can You Ever Forgive Me” brings us the best of Melissa McCarthy, and a whole lot more.
