Classics: A Review of Can You Ever Forgive Me By Lauren Ennis

‘Never let the facts get in the way of a good story’ is an adage that seemed to sum up the life philosophy of biographer turned forger Lee Israel. After her literary career reached a standstill, Israel began a downward spiral that ultimately culminated in her embarking upon a criminal second act. This reinvention of herself as fabricator and forger of the stars is a crime caper so offbeat, outrageous, and fascinating that it truly is stranger than any fiction that she was ever able to devise. The 2018 drama Can You Ever Forgive Me chronicles Israel’s exploits in all of their gritty glory with a caustic wit and darkly comedic sensibility worthy of its infamous anti-heroine.

The story begins with Israel hovering dangerously close to rock bottom as she faces unemployment, mounting debts, and alcoholism. Despite her troubles, however, she desperately clings to her brief success as a celebrity biographer and stubbornly refuses to accept that her literary career may be at an end. When her agent declines to represent her any longer she finds herself running out of career options for “a fifty-one year old who likes cats better than people”. In the midst of this downward spiral, her landlord begins threatening to evict her and her veterinarian refuses to treat her sick, elderly, cat until she pays her outstanding bills. Desperate for fast cash she sells a letter from Katherine Hepburn thanking her for her work on Hepburn’s biography. The letter sells for more than she had expected, and with that one transaction the seeds of a criminal enterprise is planted. Soon, Israel begins forging letters from some of the most beloved stars of the early twentieth century and selling them for a quick profit. Over time, she is able to pay off her debts and make a steady, if illegal, living without once having to punch a time clock. As she continues to make ever more outrageous claims in her letters and demands increasingly high prices, however, she raises the suspicions of customers and law enforcement alike and soon finds her illicit enterprise under threat.

Few characters seem as unlikely to garner audience sympathy as Lee Israel and her accomplice Jack Hock, but few adventures are as oddly addictive and strangely enjoyable as Can You Ever Forgive Me? At its heart, the film is a story of two misfits in desperate search of a way to matter if not exactly belong. As Israel faces commercial failure and critical irrelevance it is difficult not to understand her sense of displacement and isolation. Similarly, after witnessing the various ways in which her financial and personal lives are unraveling audiences will be hard pressed not to empathize with her plight. As a result, when she finally finds a means through which to sell her writing it is all too tempting to root for her illicit enterprise's success. Fortunately, even as the film humanizes both Israel and Hock it never loses sight of how large a role each of them played in creating their own problems or of just how far askew each of their moral compasses are. The film refuses to take the easy way out and either champion or chastise its wayward characters and instead, much like Israel herself did in her biographies, objectively relates their story in a way that allows both characters to speak for themselves. In this way the film allows audiences to make up their own minds as they watch the delinquent duo careen from one misadventure to another, thumbing their noses at the society that rejected them all along the way. For a darkly comic journey into the rotten side of the Big Apple join Israel and Hock in Can You Ever Forgive Me?

The film primarily functions as a character study of Israel and Hock, and as a result hinges upon the performances of Melissa McCarthy and Richard E Grant as the deviant duo. Thankfully, both actors are more than up for the job with McCarthy proving that she is capable of far more than stock comedy roles and Grant lending the gritty proceedings comic relief and sophisticated charm. In McCarthy's hands Israel remains every bit as unlikeable as she was in life, but she is far more relateable than a curmudgeonly criminal ought to be. Rather than transform the arguably pathetic Israel into either an object of pity or parody, McCarthy opts for a more difficult and far more compelling approach by infusing her anti-heroine with a pathos that will have viewers if not actually rooting for her success at least nodding in understanding. Grant, meanwhile, nearly steals the film in his infectiously charming portrayal of the gleefully amoral Jack. The chemistry between the two is nothing short of sparkling as they breeze from one misdeed to another all while offering up some of the most crackling one-liners this side of Dorothy Parker.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? sticks to its facts but still manages to tell a story that is not just good, but great. Through its intelligent script and wickedly witty performances the film brings the life and times of Lee Israel to vivid life in all of their grotesque glory. The film faithfully relates Israel's self-destructive odyssey without passing judgment upon or making excuses for its anti-heroine as it allows Israel to speak for her unapologetically amoral self. For a biography with a bite join Lee and Jack on the caper of a lifetime in Can You Ever Forgive Me?