Melissa McCarthy in rare form
For “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Melissa McCarthy does way more than just make us laugh in the darkly comedic biopic “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”: She gives a supremely soulful and career-best performance as an unlikely literary criminal.
McCarthy is full of caustic wit and vulnerable insecurity as the cat-loving, human-tolerating Lee Israel, a renowned celebrity biographer in the 1970s and ’80s who in hard times turned to forging the letters of Noel Coward, Dorothy Parker and other personalities – and got caught.
The film ( ★★★g; rated R; in theaters Friday in New York and Los Angeles, expanding into November) doesn’t just unfold this one woman’s life as pageturning cautionary tale. Splendidly directed by Marielle Heller, “Forgive Me?” feels worn and lived in – in a good way – with a world of musty vintage tones and barroom desperation given emotional life through McCarthy and a super supporting turn from Richard E. Grant.
From her beginning scenes being canned from a copywriting gig, McCarthy’s misanthrope is an acerbic delight. Irked by the sight of groupies huddled around Tom Clancy at a dinner party, she wants to get her reputation back, but her agent (Jane Curtin) rarely returns her phone calls, and Lee’s idea for a bio of Fanny Brice isn’t exactly burning up the Manhattan publishing scene.
Broke and needing cash to take care of her sick cat, Lee takes original Brice letters she found doing research to bookshops buying such collectibles. They tell her the finds are cool but more interesting letters would command more money. With a phalanx of vintage typewriters and her own talent for words, Lee finds financial success by manufacturing fake letters that are as charming as they are completely illegal.
At a pub she befriends street hustler Jack Hock (Grant), a fast-talking British rapscallion who’s one of the few people Lee likes. Jack starts as a confidante with loose morals but becomes an accomplice in Lee’s shenanigans.
As Jack, Grant is a perfect complement for McCarthy’s character: As gay intellectuals in New York, they understand each other in a way no one else could. Lee also strikes up a connection with bookstore owner Anna (Dolly Wells). In scenes with that pair especially, it’s hard not to feel empathy and root for Lee to find redemption.
In McCarthy’s hands, Lee is neither hero nor villain but instead a relatable, unlovable grouch who’s pretty easy to love. And it’s the kind of Oscar-ready role of a lifetime that can’t come again soon enough.