Movie Reaction: Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Formula: The Talented Mr. Ripley * Alex & Emma

I've had rocky relationship with Melissa McCarthy for a while. I loved her in Bridesmaids. She's been fine in other movies since but she's been in equally as many complete duds. The deciding factor has been if she's in charge of the movie or not. If she had a weak director or, say, co-wrote the screenplay and had her husband direct it, the result has been dreadful. She's such a big performer than she can walk all over a movie if no one stops her. If she's asked to give a smaller performance (St. Vincent) or has a director that knows how to balance her out (Paul Feig with Spy or Ghostbusters), then she's every bit deserving of her status as Oscar nominee and Emmy winner. I'm pleased to say that in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, McCarthy has never been better (or hasn't been since 2011, depending on your view of her work in Bridesmaids).

Can You Ever Forgive? me tells the true story of Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy) in the 1990s. She was at one time a best selling author who wrote books about famous or successful women. The popularity of those books was due to the subjects, not the writer. By the 90s, she's in her 50s and hasn't been in demand for a while. She can't get any money for the current book she's writing. She's alcoholic and alone, except for her beloved cat. To pay her bills, she starts forging celebrity letters and selling them to collectors. Obviously, that catches up to her.

It doesn't matter how much of the story I give away, because this is a character study, first and foremost. Lee is an unlikable person. She actively pushes everyone she knows away. Old relationships failed because she never let the other person get close. Her only friend is an aging homeless man she met in a bar, played marvelously by Richard E. Grant. McCarthy makes it clear why everyone she knows has abandoned her. I don't blame any of them. It's equally clear though that she can be fun to be around. She clever and smart. When someone gets her talking about the people she written about, she's quite pleasant and eager to listen. Life hasn't gone how she expected, and it's very much her fault, which she realizes. Simply put, if Melissa McCarthy doesn't get an Oscar nomination for this, I'll be shocked. She doesn't do too big. The laughs are earned and character specific. She's unlikable in a way that I still sympathize with.

The most interesting things the movie has to say are about the value of one's work. Lee is proud of the writing in her forgeries. People enjoy what she says in them. But, they only have value because people think someone else wrote it. The movie isn't trying to forgive Israel for what she did. It does see the hypocrisy of it though. It reminds me a lot of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. "If the facts don't fit the legend, print the legend".

I love Grant's work too. I recently watched Withnail &I, perhaps his most famous role, and didn't care for it, so I was pleased that I could relate to this role instead. His Jack Hock and Lee are kindred spirits, even though they have very different personalities. My favorite decision in the movie is that when he and Lee have a falling out, it's not clear who, if anyone deserves the blame. The way it plays out tickled me. I heard people in the theater saying "Oh no", dreading where it was going, like it was a horror movie. 99 times out of 100, it would've played out differently. Because of that predictability, director Marielle Heller was able to make this one time dramatic by doing nothing.

Like a lot of character studies, the movie does leave a lot to be desired. The story is a little thin. This is about as white collar a crime as there is, so the stakes never feel that dire. Certain parts of the story lead nowhere or are inserted for no discernible reason (how key was it to the movie to know that her apartment was so dirty, and did we really need a montage of her cleaning it?). There's a movie like this in the Oscars every year: an OK movie that's carried by the lead performance (Florence Foster Jenkins, Joy, Still Alice , Blue Jasmine). If that's what it takes to get performances this good from Melissa McCarthy though, then I'm all for it.

One Last Thought: I didn't know if I should bring up the queer cinema angle. Lee Israel and Jock Hock are both gay. That isn't the defining trait of their characters or their stories though. Part of me feels like bringing that up would be like bringing up that Mace Windu in Star Wars is black. That doesn't define the character, so am I doing a disservice to bring it up for no other reason than to mention it? I like how it's handled in the movie. It isn't forced into center stage nor is it ignored.  

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend