Can You Ever Forgive Me?

The opening moments of Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me? establishes the coarse nature of Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy), how her attitude results in her losing her job and alienating her from others. As she works on a long-gestating Fanny Brice biography, she finds a better way to earn some quick cash: writing and selling forgeries.

Like her previous film The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Heller chronicles the complicated complexities of the fair sex. But rather than the coming-of-age tale her debut told, she depicts how those in desperate measures will react to unlikely situations. And Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty's script imbues the regular struggles a writer faces. (Granted, the path Israel went down is thankfully one rarely traveled.)

Indeed, the way some fiction depicts the "glamorous" life of writers is inaccurate. (Then again, most writers are, well, writers.) Though Can You Ever Forgive Me? acknowledges some of Israel's past successes, it shines more of a light on how she tries to surpass them (and doesn't quite succeed in doing so). Much like actresses, even writers can have a short shelf life (pun intended).

And in a way, the film's title could be recognized at McCarthy herself. A number of the films she was involved with between her Oscar-nominated work in Bridesmaids and Can You Ever Forgive Me? had some doubting her talents. (She was regularly on the verge of the same typecasting as Chris Farley -- "fatty falls down, everybody goes home happy" -- before her.) But thanks to her career-redeeming work here, we can, in fact, forgive McCarthy.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a brilliant work from everyone involved with it. (Hopefully, McCarthy will get more dramatic roles because of this.) As the credits begin to roll, you may wonder what kind of legacy Israel (who died in 2014) leaves behind: as a celebrity biographer or as a forger of their words.

My Rating: *****