Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Can You Ever Forgive Me? is not a film that focuses on its protagonist’s queer identity. If you’re looking for a movie featuring a queer love story or narratives focusing on the specific struggles that a queer person might face, this is not it. But that’s sort of why I liked it. Identifying as a lesbian isn’t always having conflicts about relationships with women or even struggling with lesbian-specific issues. Sometimes, life as a lesbian is doing crime and being more attached to your cat than any person.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a biopic about misanthropic writer, Lee Israel. Struggling to get her work published and short on cash, Lee consequently begins to forge letters from dead Hollywood icons. She is helped in her increasingly profitable yet risky foray into crime by Jack. Jack is a homosexual drug dealer and generally, an all-around disaster of a person.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? focuses little on Lee Israel’s sexuality, yet it is discussed explicitly. Personally, I am highly in favour of narratives featuring queer protagonists whose story line doesn’t demand them to be queer. I dislike the idea that the only time queer people should be characters is if their story ties strongly back to their queer identity. I think that minimizes characters and real life LGBTQ* people. It suggests that they are just a sexuality and gender identity and not fully rounded individuals. Besides, in Can You Ever Forgive Me? Lee Israel is pushed to do crime because her beloved pet cat is sick. If you don’t think that’s valid WLW representation, then I don’t know what to tell you.

I really did find myself disappearing into this movie. Frequently, found I was forgetting to critique writing or directing and forgetting that it’s Melissa McCarthy playing this role. I was fully absorbed in the movie and its characters. Instead of seeing it as a movie and noting its flaws, I allowed myself to be caught up in the story and just wanted to watch it unfold. From me, a critical and aggressive over-thinker, this is high praise indeed.

The acting in Can You Ever Forgive Me? is exceptional. Melissa McCarthy is hands-down spectacular in this. Her portrayal of Lee Israel manages to make this character compulsively watchable even while being almost always unlikable. Likewise, Richard E. Grant matches her energy and talent playing the showier character to McCarthy’s dour curmudgeon. They’re excellent individually and make dynamite scene partners.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? is so engaging and tragic despite it being a rather small-scale movie. I’ve seen movies where multiple people die and it failed to evoke as much emotional response in me as Melissa McCarthy cradling the body of her dead cat. Oh yeah, also, the cat dies in this. I thought about not talking about that because it’s a spoiler. But then I figured there will be people who wouldn’t want to be surprised by cat death and now they’re forewarned. Even beyond the cat death, there’s such tragedy in Lee Israel’s story. She’s almost unable to connect with living people. Instead, she finds connections with the dead celebrities she forges and her cat. The events in her life might not be overly tragic but there is something so effectively sad about her flaws.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a small, personal movie. It is not about someone changing the world or experiencing some major historical event. It’s just a small scale, very human tragedy. It remains gripping due to its excellent writing directing and superb performances. All around, Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a very, very well done movie.

Overall rating: 8.8/10

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