Can You Ever Forgive Me? finds redemption in unsympathetic Israel

By Katherine Monk

There is something particularly difficult about watching a writer struggle when you’re a writer, too. You recognize every gut-churning moment of meaninglessness. The pain of a bad word choice. The fatigue of word-churning, or worse still, the ultimate cliché: The fear of a blank page.

Lee Israel was a writer who suffered all of this and more, which should make her incredibly empathetic. Yet, the author who penned the memoir which gives this film its title does her best to push you away, presenting a significant challenge to Melissa McCarthy. She’s a naturally likeable person whose comic talent resides in empathy.

To play the surly Lee Israel — a woman who wrote bestselling biographies of Hollywood greats such as Katharine Hepburn and Tallulah Bankhead, only to hit rock bottom, the bottle, and the road to ruin — is something of a stretch. You would think.

The last time she appeared on screen was with an ejaculating puppet in the Happytime Murders, and she’s best known for the “hot lava” bathroom sink scene in Bridesmaids. But comic talents have always been able to make the transition to drama with surprising aplomb. Witness Peter Sellers in Being There or Sarah Silverman in I Smile Back or Mike Myers in 54. They can pivot the mania that propels them to be funny, and turn it inward, into the darker patches of personality that torture us all.

McCarthy offers a perfect case study of comic asset reallocation. First, she finds the soft spot — a place where she can connect with the audience emotionally. Then she launches a few barbs straight into the fleshy tissue of self-loathing. She knows how to hit a nerve, which is why this movie rides the edge of irritation for the duration.

McCarthy offers a perfect case study of comic asset reallocation. First, she finds the soft spot — a place where she can connect with the audience emotionally. Then she launches a few barbs straight into the fleshy tissue of self-loathing.

Lee Israel was a classic curmudgeon. She was rude and often too direct because she was smarter than most, and couldn’t suffer fools. So she didn’t like people. Yet, she loved cats. She honestly felt the only creature who would ever truly love her was her feline, Jersey, a 12-year-old tuxedo who dressed up her life. The opening scene establishes the bond early on, and like everything that follows in Marielle Heller’s (Diary of a Teenage Girl) biopic, it immediately feels threatened. The cat is sick, Lee is behind on her rent, and she just lost her job as a copy editor for drinking in the office.

Lee would do just about anything to help her cat. So if you’re hooked by this one single thread of connection, you’re committed to processing the fur ball that follows. Lee can’t get her agent, played by a prickly Jane Curtin, to get her a writing gig. So the only thing she can sell is her hand-written note from Katharine Hepburn.

That’s how much she loves her cat. It’s a relief to see a bill paid, but there are more. So Israel decides to get creative. She forges one letter. Then another. Soon, she’s what she considers a “better Dorothy Parker than Dorothy Parker.”

Because McCarthy places the dramatic emphasis on writerly ego, and her ability to convince us Israel was a technical genius, we’re able to untangle the inky ribbons of deception to see a woman who felt wronged by the literary clique. She rails at the sales of her peers, turning what she considers garbage into New York Times bestsellers. She’s bitter, but she had a book on the Times list, too. Her resentment isn’t entirely unjustified. Her criminal behaviour, however, is never the stuff of Butch and Sundance. We can’t root for her. She’s a liar.

Because McCarthy places the dramatic emphasis on writerly ego, and her ability to convince us Israel was a technical genius, we’re able to untangle the inky ribbons of deception to see a woman who felt wronged by the literary clique.

So the question is: Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Even the title is a moral tease: It’s a line from one of Israel’s fake Parker letters. It reaffirms the crucial point, and a hint at redemption: Only a good writer could have penned good forgeries of iconic authors.

Ironically, Israel found a strange confidence in the voice of others, and McCarthy articulates all these small moments of backward realization in her gaze and posture. Wearing little makeup and a mid-80s mop with bangs, McCarthy surrenders to a tweed-covered state of slovenliness.

Ironically, Israel found a strange confidence in the voice of others, and McCarthy articulates all these small moments of backward realization in her gaze and posture. Wearing little makeup and a mid-80s mop with bangs, McCarthy surrenders to a tweed-covered state of slovenliness.

Her inelegance finds a beautiful foil in Richard E. Grant as her friend, Jack — a meandering bon vivant always looking to snag the next beautiful young man with his big blue eyes. Grant understands the character in and out, sleazing his natural charm into a potential Oscar nod.

This movie feels built for awards season. From the period earth tones and chunky sweaters, to the celebration of analog, Can You Ever Forgive Me takes place in a world we remember with a degree of fondness. Heller capitalizes as best she can, placing the characters in arcane locales such as book shops, un-themed neighbourhood bars and rent-controlled Manhattan apartments.

We like the places, and Lee Israel is a part of that cranky old landscape that once defined the American intellectual, elbow patches and all. McCarthy brings it all to life with such a morose incandescence, she finds the the bas-relief in Israel’s stony facade and relates something epic.

We like the places, and Lee Israel is a part of that cranky old landscape that once defined the American intellectual, elbow patches and all. McCarthy brings it all to life with such a morose incandescence, she finds the the bas-relief in Israel’s stony facade and relates something epic.

Is it tragedy or comedy? Can You Ever Forgive Me? pulls off the delicate task of being both thanks to McCarthy and Grant’s grinning demons, and Heller’s carefully restrained scenes that frequently ride the edge of discomfort. Can You Ever Forgive Me? isn’t easy, but as the saying goes, the experience is its own reward.

@katherinemonk

Main photo: Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant as Lee Israel and Jack Hock in Marielle Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? Courtesy 20th Century Fox.

THE EX-PRESS, November 2, 2018

-30-