WRITING HER WRONGS
Melissa McCarthy redeems herself as an author who’s about to crack
FAKE it till you make it, the saying goes. For Lee Israel, however, it was fake it till you make rent.
Melissa McCarthy stars as Israel, the real-life writer-turned-criminal who forged celebrity letters to avoid going broke, in the new movie “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” In her best work since 2011’s “Bridesmaids,” McCarthy is brilliant.
An obnoxious, hot-headed magazine writer and author in New York from the 1960s to ’80s, Israel penned biographies of aging celebrities such as Estée Lauder and Tallulah Bankhead — but never made a name for herself, or a significant income. She did earn a reputation, though — as a nightmare. Her agent Marjorie (Jane Curtin) wouldn’t even take her calls.
By the ’90s, Israel had no work, no friends and couldn’t afford her rent. So, she tapped into her enthusiasm for dead stars, and began making counterfeit personal letters by the likes of Noël Coward and Dorothy Parker. She’d then sell them to book dealers for hundreds of dollars each. The fake correspondences were so convincing — and well-written — that nobody caught on for months.
“Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” based on Israel’s 2008 tell-all memoir, has a lot of laughs and a delicious setup, but it hits hardest as a drama about human desperation and survival.
What’s so different and sad about this wonderful film, compared to the popular fraud film “Catch Me If You Can,” is that Israel’s life never becomes glamorous or extravagant as a result of her seedy new gig. She does it to pay her cat’s medical bills and occasionally buy her eventual coconspirator Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant, a charming lush) a drink. Simple stuff.
The movie isn’t DiCaprio-sexy, either. Israel is 51 and homely. Her Upper West Side apartment isn’t inexplicably roomy with breathtaking park views, but a shabby, close-quarters mess that takes your breath away for the wrong reasons. There’s a scene straight out of “Hoarders,” in which mounds of stinky cat turds are cleaned out from under her bed.
McCarthy and her innate warmth is key to making a grouchy, unpleasant con artist with bad hygiene likable — lovable, even. She’s hilarious as ever, but she uses jokes here as a social shield, rather than to steal the spotlight. Her Israel isn’t a clown, but a hard-working woman who only wants to make a living during rapidly changing times. Is there anything more relatable than that?
New Yorkers will get a kick out of the scenery. If, like me, you love movies that capture authentic New York — rather than generic, fusionsushi-bar New York — you’ll fall for this film that turns side streets into stars. Director Marielle Heller (“The Diary of a Teenage Girl”) shoots the West Village, a neighborhood soaked in booze and history, with particular affection, especially the gay bar Julius’.
It’s in the scenes at that famous watering hole, when a lonely Israel sits on a stool drinking a scotch and soda at 4 p.m., that McCarthy proves she’s far more than a punch line.
It’s been a wild year for the actress. This summer, McCarthy bombed in one of the year’s worst films, “The Happytime Murders.” Just two months later, she’s starring in one of the best.