Write from wrong: Lee Israel surely could’ve done better than the dreadful ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’
There is a movie, barely, in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” but it’s not the one you saw.
Plenty of figures associated with dubious acts have written books to capitalize on their notoriety. Giving them a film should require an extraordinary standard of proof — proof that this person’s story is actually worth a damn.
Lee Israel’s isn’t. Admittedly, it will help pay whatever restitution might still be owed her victims, although her offenses occurred back in the early 1990s, and her 2015 obituary makes no mention of any outstanding debts, so either everyone got made whole, or everyone stopped caring. Presumably the filmmakers bought the rights to the story from Israel herself; her obituary indicates no known survivors.
“Can You Ever Forgive Me?” is a ghastly film that bears similarities to the detestable 2017 “Molly’s Game.” If you bought a ticket, you got taken. There are others in this genre, such as the recent “I, Tonya” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” and, from a while back, “Catch Me If You Can.” Unfortunately, there is another shtick that’s working in Hollywood, which is the older, uncouth, vulgar woman proving a hit with Oscar voters. Allison Janney and June Squibb both received Academy Award nominations for playing such characters; Janney even won. But those were supporting characters. Melissa McCarthy is more than capable of this material in “Forgive Me,” but her antihero is the whole story, a frumpy, bitter, obnoxious, unyielding alcoholic, too much for even 100 minutes. Filmmakers seemed to sense this, transitioning Israel’s saga in the latter half of the film (and then barely hinting at an AIDS drama) to pal Jack Hock, one of those love-him-or-hate-him characters of Richard E. Grant, who sells a script in “The Player” with far more enthusiasm than he expresses for Israel’s tokens.
Way too many films depict writers. It’s a terrible idea. There’s nothing to show. It’s not just Strike 1 against a plot, it’s typically inning over. Think of any film featuring a prominent character as a writer and then think of that character as instead practicing any other profession or simply unemployed, and you’ve got the same movie, good or bad, minus the scenes at the vintage bookstore where people in sweaters toast someone’s latest success.
“Can You Ever Forgive Me?” requires viewers to believe Israel is a talented author. The only way viewers can believe that is to read her work, something that can’t be done in a film. So we hear Israel and her agent and a few others talking about her supposed best-seller success. If they said she was a WNBA champion basketball player, we’d have to go along with that too.
The film implies that Israel was regularly on the New York Times best-seller list. According to her New York Times obituary, she made it for one week, in 1980, for Kilgallen. If you know who the subject of that book was, you are in the minority. That doesn’t mean it’s an unimpressive work, only that Israel is not Kitty Kelley.
As Israel turns to crime and fabricates supposed letters written by famous authors, it is left to the supporting characters to vouch for her efforts. We are told two things — that the letters are well-written and that they possess rare candor.
“Can You Ever Forgive Me?” is too interested in its brazen scofflaw and not nearly as interested in what she is doing. The film demonstrates that the demand for memorabilia is large and supply is permanently constrained, that the marketplace is completely unregulated, that transactions are made with discretion, all an inviting environment for crooks. Dorothy Parker did not write an unlimited inventory of letters, and probably many of the ones she did write were not saved. That accounts for the low supply. What about demand? Does anyone really need to own one of her personal letters? Apparently, yes. There’s something about celebrity minutiae that fascinates the public and in dollar terms can be remarkably lucrative.
A Steve McQueen Brooks Brothers credit card sold for nearly $2,000 recently. That item was unsigned. Autographs, which Israel was manufacturing as part of her letters, are for whatever reason incredibly desirable and are surely the most-often forged pieces of memorabilia. How many baseballs with the words “Babe Ruth” were signed by some guy in 1984? Partly because of people like Israel, we have a cottage industry of “authenticators,” for autographs, artwork, coins, baseball cards, movie posters, stamps, firearms. You can see a whole batch of them on TV’s “Pawn Stars” (including gorgeous rare-book expert Rebecca Romney) or “Antiques Roadshow.” Evaluating objects is an impressive and valuable skill; signatures are another matter. What you won’t see on TV but can learn via Google is that several of the autograph authenticators on “Pawn Stars” have experienced controversy. One of them actually stated wrongly on the show that a script for “The Godfather” was signed by “Al” Pacino rather than producer “Al” Ruddy.
Maybe autograph validators can’t adequately handle the volume of submissions, or maybe they’re affected by biases. Or maybe, the consumer is paying them to perform a function that is simply unachievable — assessing with 100% certainty whether a collectible item is authentic.
The booksellers in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” appear diligent, well-versed, and for the most part, honest. With very little that is likable in this film, the shops are the stars, their niche New York locations and subdued lighting creating a sophisticated book lover’s haven. Chances are, the shop managers would’ve spent a lot more time examining the paper and typewriter and signature before paying cash for Israel’s creations in quicker time than it takes to buy a candy bar at a convenience store checkout counter. To avoid being scammed, all they probably had to do was tell Israel they needed to keep her items for a day to authenticate them. The film, like “Molly’s Game” and to some extent “The Wolf of Wall Street,” laughs far more at the (unseen) suckers who buy than the fraudsters who sell. (That includes the ending and its highly unethical tribute.) The movie and the court system decide that Israel’s offenses were minor. She didn’t get jail time, and nobody cared if she went to AA.
In the movie, Israel pockets fairly small amounts of money for each transaction. According to her New York Times obituary, Israel grossed at most $40,000 for a year and a half of forgery and, in some cases, stealing actual letters from libraries and museums and selling them. The latter was probably her biggest legal concern. Writing a short letter and signing it “Clark Gable” and taking it to a rare bookseller and saying “I don’t know, I just found it” and accepting money for it is probably technically illegal, but 1) it seems accurate from the movie that authorities don’t care much until this becomes a routine enterprise and 2) cases might be hard to prove against someone who is careful about his/her statements and digs in with a bulldog attorney. “Forgive Me,” like “Molly’s Game,” finds a way to declare the perpetrator as the victim. The conclusion is caveat emptor. Maybe it’s all a message that if Dorothy Parker didn’t write and mail a letter to you directly, you’ve really got no business owning it.
The part of Lee Israel in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” was supposed to go to Julianne Moore. But Moore left the project over “creative differences,” and in stepped Melissa McCarthy. The screenplay is co-written by Nicole Holofcener, who was also going to direct; that task fell to Marielle Heller.
Scroll through Rotten Tomatoes and you’ll find snippet after snippet noting that this work is a departure from McCarthy’s typical roles. Whether McCarthy has been in good films or bad has no bearing on whether this film has merit. A most effusive review comes from Rex Reed, who actually declares “Forgive Me” a “masterpiece” and his favorite of 2018. He congratulates Israel for “bravely” writing the memoir that became the film. He says, with remarkable surprise for a veteran reviewer, that McCarthy “completely disappears into the character,” a well-known cliché for any actor under heavy makeup and wig. In the second paragraph, he notes McCarthy has done “so many bad movies,” and in the third paragraph, he writes that he knew Israel and that the film is “accurate as DNA.” Essentially 99.9% of viewers will not have known Israel or even known who she was, and as Roger Ebert used to say, Accuracy is no excuse for drama; effectiveness is.
The critics, the booksellers and the judge all got fooled by Lee Israel. She didn’t get what she deserved. Her victims are still piling up.
1 star
(November 2018)
“Can You Ever Forgive Me?” (2018)
Starring
Melissa McCarthy
as Lee Israel
♦
Richard E. Grant
as Jack Hock
♦
Dolly Wells
as Anna
♦
Ben Falcone
as Alan Schmidt ♦
Gregory Korostishevsky
as Andre ♦
Jane Curtin
as Marjorie ♦
Stephen Spinella
as Paul ♦
Christian Navarro
as Kurt ♦
Pun Bandhu
as Agent Doyle ♦
Erik LaRay Harvey
as Agent Solonas ♦
Brandon Scott Jones
as Glen ♦
Shae D’lyn
as Nell ♦
Rosal Colon
as Rachel ♦
Anna Deavere Smith
as Elaine ♦
Marc Evan Jackson
as Lloyd ♦
Marcella Lowery
as Guest at Party ♦
Roberta Wallach
as Tom Clancy Groupie ♦
Tina Benko
as Karen ♦
Sandy Rosenberg
as Yale Librarian ♦
Kevin Carolan
as Tom Clancy ♦
Ben Rauch
as Coat Check Guy ♦
Ethel Fisher
as Mrs. Unger ♦
Chris Lamberth
as Exterminator ♦
Joanna P. Adler
as Arlene ♦
Mary McCann
as Judge ♦
Michael Laurence
as Fenwick ♦
Michael Cyril Creighton
as Harry ♦
Alice Kremelberg
as Server ♦
Moisés Acevedo
as Clerk ♦
Lucy DeVito
as Gossipy Office Worker ♦
Josh Evans
as Boss in Office ♦
Ricky Garcia
as Security Guard ♦
Charlotte Mary Wen
as Cubicle Worker ♦
Marcus Choi
as Another Cubicle Worker ♦
Justin Vivian Bond
as Lounge Singer ♦
Tim Cummings
as Craig ♦
Havilah Brewster
as Toni ♦
Towne The Cat
as Jersey ♦
Marmee Regine Cosico
as Museum Patron ♦
Ron Maestri
as Book Store Customer
Directed by: Marielle Heller
Written by: Nicole Holofcener
Written by: Jeff Whitty
Producer: Anne Carey
Producer: David Yarnell
Producer: Amy Nauiokas
Associate producer: Shani Geva
Executive producer: Bob Balaban
Executive producer: Jawal Nga
Executive producer: Pamela Hirsch
Co-head of production: David Greenbaum
Music: Nate Heller
Cinematography: Brandon Trost
Editing: Anne McCabe
Casting: Jennifer Euston
Production design: Stephen H. Carter
Art direction: Marci Mudd
Set decoration: Sarah E. McMillan
Costume: Arjun Bhasin
Makeup and hair: Sarah Stamp, Linda D. Flowers, Katie Beatty, Ma Kalaadevi Ananda, Dahlia Warner, Tracy Raffelson