CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
US, 2018, 106 minutes, Colour.
Melissa Mc Carthy, Richard E.Grant, Dolly Wells, Ben Falcone, Jane Curtin, Stephen Spinella, Anna Deavere Smith.
Directed by Marielle Heller.
This film offers a tour-de-force performance from Melissa Mc Carthy. From early appearances on television, she emerged in the late 2000s as a strong comic presence on the big screen in films such as Bridesmaids and Eat. In the succeeding years, she made a great number of comedies, a number of them raucous, suiting her on-screen personality. However, she did some serious rules, especially with Bill Murray in St Vincent.
In this film she has the opportunity to draw on her comic timing and mannerisms but also to be very serious. She plays an author, Lee Israel, who has published some biographies with some literary success. However, Lee Israel is an exceedingly prickly character, disappointed in life, ambitious in her writing, very quick in her negative reactions and telling off of people she does not like (which is most people).
The film is set in New York City in the early 1990s. Lee Israel is suffering from writer's block as well as having no income, is fired from a job, goes to a party to discuss her future with her agent but is given the brush off. She cannot pay her rent, she has not enough money to take her beloved cat to the vet for treatment, is down on herself and on life.
She has written a biography of Fanny Brice and realises she has an autographed letter, framed, which she takes to a buyer with connections to collectors. The buyer is very sympathetic, Anne (Dolly Wells) who buys other letters especially when Lee Israel gets the idea to embellish the letters with more personal detail, buying different typewriters for different authors whose letters she creates, buying old paper and treating it to make them feel more authentic. Not only does she have the Fanny Brice letter but she researches Noel Coward, imitates his signature, finds a specialist agent to sell to Coward aficionados, and, with her acerbic approach to life, forges letters from Dorothy Parker and, at the end, an agent commenting on Parker's wit indicates how much better, at times, Lee Israel was at being Dorothy Parker.
Down in the dumps and drinking in a bar, she encounters Jack (Richard E.Grant) whom she had encountered at a party (remembering that he urinated by mistake on the furs in the closet). They talk, they become associates, if not friends. He is a campy gay man, flirting with waiters. When Lee reveals what she has been doing, he becomes fascinated and helps her to sell letters to agents, enjoying his acting spiels of persuasion.
Eventually, there are complaints from collectors (she has inserted too much overt gay comment from Noel Coward, too much for the era) and her picture is circulated and warnings issued.
Jack is found out, collaborates with the police and, there is some pathos as Lee goes to a lawyer, appears before the judge and makes a rather more personal and honest speech about herself than she usually does.
She gets the brainwave to write a book about what she has done and it becomes a bestseller. Jack became ill and died in 1994. Lee Israel died in 2014.
Intriguing to enjoy a film about a character who could be so constantly unpleasant.
1. Based on a true story? Characters? Situation?
2. New York City, the 1990s, the world publishing, bookshops, agents, letters by authors, sales and collectors? Apartments, bars, the court? The musical score? The range of New York songs?
3. The title, Lee Israel attributing it to Dorothy Parker? Dorothy Parker's style and wit, the forgeries of Fanny Brice letters, Noel Coward?
4. Lee Israel has a character, Melissa Mc Carthy's impersonation, age 50, her career, successful biographies, prickly character? The relationship with Elaine and breaking it? Her drinking, rough manner and language, not having any friends, contact with her agent, going to the party, the clashes? Her being sacked from her job? At home, her devotion to her cat, age, feeding him, sick, take him to the vet, not having enough money for his care? Going to the party, talking with Marjorie, stealing the coat? Trying to sell her books, the attitude of the salesman and his spurning her? (And the later comeuppance with telling him that his house was on fire and his hurrying to it?).
5. The finding of the letter from Fanny Brice, going to sell it, the discussion with Anne, the insertion of the postscript and getting more money? Developing her idea of forging the letters, the different typewriters for the different characters, getting the historic paper and treating it? Reading the Noel Coward books, practising his signature? Deciding to write Dorothy Parker letters?
6. The sales, the friendship with Anne, Anne and her age, loneliness, the meal out, Paul and the expertise on Noel Coward's letters, his delight, talking about the collectors? Going to the convention, the chatty dealer, warning her against troublemakers, especially Allan? Her continuing to write?
7. In the bar, the encounter with Jack, trying to remember him, remembering that he pissed in the closet and ruined the furs, drinking with him, walking, the tentative friendship, his going to house, the meals, his talk, his being gay, not knowing Fanny Brice or Marlene Dietrich? His flirting with the waiter and later having him while he was minding Lee's apartment?
8. Jack, selling cocaine, his spiels, his going out to sell the letters, stealing the money and Lee's anger? Their always asking for cash?
9. Lee's visiting Yale? In the archives, stealing the letter? Jack minding the house, feeding the cat but neglecting it, its death? With the waiter and their encounter? Lee's anger on return?
10. The call to Elaine, the visit, the talk in the park, memories of the past, Elaine leaving?
11. Jack, the suspicions, the warning about Lee? Jack being caught, interrogated, his collaboration?
12. Lee, her arrest, the discussions with the lawyer, going to court, the plea, her speech and admission, the verdict of the judge?
13. Allegedly at an AA meeting, wanting to meet Jack? His illness? Her idea about the new book, wanting his permission?
14. The success of the book, Jack and his death? The verdicts on the quality of Lee's book?
