Can You Ever Forgive Me? Is A Skillfully Subdued Triumph

Like the boys (A.K.A. Zac Efron and Corbin Bleau) in High School Musical 3: Senior Year, writer/director Marielle Heller is back after her outstanding 2015 directorial effort The Diary of a Teenage Girl. A movie bursting at the seams with authentic portrayals of all the complexities of a specific teenagers angst, anything she did as a follow-up to that excellent motion picture was gonna grab my attention. But the fact that such a sophomore directorial effort, entitled Can You Ever Forgive Me?, would also serve as a chance for Melissa McCarthy to flex her dramatic acting muscles meant this was a movie that's been very much on my radar for ages now (it probably would have been on my radar anyway though given how many times I've seen the trailer over the past seven months).


The resulting project is an adaptation of the autobiographical book of the same name by Lee Isreal (here portrayed by Melissa McCarthy), an author who found herself in a state of financial distress in 1991. Her desk job was going nowhere, her agent wasn't getting back to her on any potential writing gigs and all the little financial burdens of everyday life are piling up around her. After stumbling upon an actual vintage letter while doing some library research, she promptly sells the document for a tidy sum that gives her an idea on how she can use her writing skills to make some cash. Lee Israel is soon getting her financial fortunes reversed by way of engaging in forgeries of historical letters, an endeavor she's aided in by Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant).

This story results in a very different animal from Heller's The Diary of a Teenage Girl or any other typical crime drama story. This isn't a gritty crime thriller like The Town or any number of Scorsese movies nor is it a farce-like take on real-life criminal activities like I, Tonya. Can You Ever Forgive Me? is instead a restrained drama that's extremely rooted in reality, this is a grounded affair with no discernable heightened touches to its names. The crime itself isn't really the point of this story, instead, focus here is squarely on the characters and that turns out to be both an understandable and brilliant move considering that the films take on the real-life individual Lee Israel is utterly fascinating through and through.

The screenplay (penned by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty) makes a lot of great decisions regarding Lee Israel right from the start of the story as we get to see all the troubles, like being unable to pay for her cats medical problems or struggling to get any attention from her agent, that she's facing on a day-to-day basis that makes it clear why she would turn to criminal activity to get her bills paid. This attention to detail regarding what informs the character of Lee Israel persists throughout the entire movie and includes demonstrating how she's the type of person who keeps other human beings at arm's length no matter if it's a passerby on the street or a (now former) significant other.

Smartly, we don't get a somber flashback explaining concisely where exactly this dominant personality trait originated from. Can You Ever Forgive Me? isn't interested in offering tidy origins for Lee Israel's current life, it instead gets fascinating sequences out of showing all the complicated ripple effects her personality has on her life. It's a layered role that sometimes has you loathing Lee Israel while other times you totally just wanna cheer her on and a lot of that comes down to just how remarkable Melissa McCarthy is in this part. Though known for her frequently humorous comedic roles that make use of boisterous personality traits and quirks, here, McCarthy matches the restrained nature of the whole movie with a performance that constantly amazes. The way McCarthy utterly vanishes into this performance and the way she's able to pull off this characters detached attitude so deftly is totally impressive, especially since it makes a big poignant scene in the third act involving her characters biggest demonstration of vulnerability incredibly hard to watch.

A lot of the entertainment in Can You Ever Forgive Me? comes not just from watching Melissa McCarthy excel in her lead role but seeing her bounce off Richard E. Grant as Jack Hock. Like McCarthy, Grant soars with his work here, he does a fantastic job with portraying the exuberant personality of Hock while also juxtaposing that personality against a physical exterior that's clearly been put through the wringer. Agony on the outside but laughing on the inside, that's the character of Jack Hock and it's a person Richard E. Grant brings to wonderful life. McCarthy and Grant play off beautifully together and some of the best scenes in this film come from just the two of them shooting the foul-mouthed breeze.

When you've got such phenomenal performances (ones that work well both individually and playing off each other) to work with, it becomes clearer than ever why Can You Ever Forgive Me? is such a grounded intimate piece of filmmaking. It's not just the actors who shine here though, Marielle Heller's direction is great, particularly in how she films the numerous conversation-heavy sequences, the editing is well-done and the choice to have the story be accompanied by a number of predominately jazz tunes (there's also an excellently chosen Paul Simon song in there!) is a marvelously unique idea. There are all kinds of quiet craftsmanship running through Can You Ever Forgive Me?.and it all adds up to a remarkable motion picture.