Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Name: Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Genre: Biography, Drama, Comedy, Crime
Released: October 19, 2018
Duration: 106 min
Rating: 87
Cast: Alice Kremelberg, Anna Deavere Smith, Ben Falcone, Christian Navarro, Dolly Wells

2018

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 53 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 149 Ratings

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7.6

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7.6	Your Score
7.6	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 149 Ratings

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Movie Details & Credits

Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: October 19, 2018 | R

Starring: Alice Kremelberg, Anna Deavere Smith, Ben Falcone, Christian Navarro, Dolly Wells, Erik LaRay Harvey, Gregory Korostishevsky, Jane Curtin, Jennifer Westfeldt, Joanna Adler, Julie Ann Emery, Marc Evan Jackson, Melissa McCarthy, Michael Cyril Creighton, Pun Bandhu, Richard E. Grant, Shae D'Lyn, Stephen Spinella

Summary: When bestselling celebrity biographer, Lee Israel, is no longer able to get published because she has fallen out of step with current tastes, she turns her art form to deception, abetted by her loyal friend, Jack.

Director: Marielle Heller

Genre(s): Biography, Drama, Comedy, Crime

Rating: R

Runtime: 106 min

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Critic Reviews

100

The Guardian Peter Bradshaw

Jan 30, 2019

The law about movie characters needing to be sympathetic is defied in this horribly fascinating true-crime black comedy. Read full review

100

Mick LaSalle

Oct 24, 2018

A breakthrough for McCarthy and a highlight of the movie year. Read full review

Simi Horwitz

Oct 18, 2018

McCarthy has found the right creative partner in Heller, who treads unchartered territory with a character like Israel: unfashionable, unfamiliar and unappealing to most viewers. Read full review

Richard Lawson

Oct 20, 2018

It doesn’t wring its hands with grief and beatify its rumpled subjects. Instead, it arrives at a place of humble, true understanding. Which means more than mere forgiveness ever could. Read full review

The Playlist Gregory Ellwood

Sep 2, 2018

Israel, as noted by her own writing, had a caustic wit that works with McCarthy’s comedic talents. She also brings a depth of emotion to Israel that comes to a head in a wonderfully composed scene with Grant at the end of the film. Read full review

Emily Yoshida

Oct 19, 2018

What is on paper a small-time heist film in the vein of the Coen Brothers or "Breaking Bad" is ultimately a cover for a more observant and relatable portrait of loneliness. Read full review

Mike Scott

Oct 31, 2018

A mess of a gay best friend, played brilliantly by Richard E. Grant in what is easily one of the year’s most enjoyable supporting performances. He steals every scene he’s in, injecting the film with a needed dose of lovability that carries it through its narrative lulls. Read full review

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User Reviews

thenewpitchfork

Jun 8, 2019

The movie was brilliant. Acting by both the lead actress and the supporting actor were phenomenal. Highly recommended, even if you have no interest in these kind of films. The performance alone is worth your time. 20/10 stars.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Vilko

Oct 18, 2019

Awesome story for a change, acting is fantastic by Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant and movie in general is great you should watch it.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

slrdavis1967

Feb 10, 2019

Marvelous movie, with strong, real performances that match the gritty detail
of that period of New York life.
So sad that all those musty bookstores have gone the way of the dodo.

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

shoulderoforion

Feb 2, 2019

Better than I thought it would be going in. Interesting story, the two leads did good work, there are worse ways to spend a couple hours.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

netflic

Nov 12, 2018

It is an adaptation of a book with the same name about a biographer Lee Israel who turned to illegal tricks after she could not get published any longer.

To make a living, Lee forged and sold several hundred letters of famous people to collectors and antics' shops before she got caught.It is an adaptation of a book with the same name about a biographer Lee Israel who turned to illegal tricks after she could not get published any longer.

To make a living, Lee forged and sold several hundred letters of famous people to collectors and antics' shops before she got caught.

Lee is played by Melissa McCarty, and her performance is outstanding.

The subject of the movie was not very interesting to me yet the way the film was made turned my experience rather enjoyable.

Plenty of sour humor here but I would not call it a comedy; it is a drama with some comic relief.

The atmosphere of New York circa 1980-1990 is very good one as well.… Expand

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

romethesecondti

Aug 2, 2019

“Can you ever forgive me?” the title asks, repeating one of the lines Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy) created for a forged Dorothy Parker letter. What’s to forgive? Crime pays!

However well done, the emotional valence of this film is ancillary to the key element of the plot: Lee’s venture“Can you ever forgive me?” the title asks, repeating one of the lines Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy) created for a forged Dorothy Parker letter. What’s to forgive? Crime pays!

However well done, the emotional valence of this film is ancillary to the key element of the plot: Lee’s venture into white-collar crime, specifically the creating and forging of letters written by deceased sharp-tongued celebrities—Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman, and Noel Coward among them — and the sale of those letters to unsuspecting dealers. Welcome to the caper film.

There’s tension here — will she get caught? — but also repetition (writing, forging, selling, repeat). Because the film is “based on a true story,” one can assume that most of this illicit activity really happened, that Lee Israel forged and sold some 400 letters. That’s a lot of crime, presumably with real economic consequences for the victims. Except there appear to be no consequences of note, and we’re shown no one being damaged. The implication is that those who were scammed were elites who could bear the cost of the fraud, as well as professionals who should have known better.

The most profound result of Lee’s tenure as a forger is that she discovers her “voice.” There’s a tragic element to this discovery. The voice she finds is less than original, associated with Parker and Coward and that earlier generation of writers. But there is also, for Lee, exhilaration. Her forgery career was “the best time of my life,” she explains to the judge, a time that allowed her to understand that she could use her essence—the same foul-mouthed, barbed wit that got her fired — to make money in the literary marketplace. There are signs, too — a cloying touch, perhaps—that the experience has given Lee a new emotional maturity: tears with an ailing (from AIDS) Jack Hock (wonderfully portrayed by Richard E. Grant) in the bar, a renewed interest in reading the bookseller’s short-story manuscript.

As unlikely as it is that extrovert Jack can help introvert Lee, their story is the emotional heart of the film, raising the issue of whether Lee is capable of caring about or opening up to the people around her, whoever they might be. Although a quick take on Lee is that she’s an incorrigible misanthrope, she’s actually neither unlikeable nor insensitive. In a speech she makes at the end of the film to the judge who will sentence her, she reveals herself to be quite self-aware. Lee may not have a heart of gold (thank goodness), but she does have a heart. McCarthy is at her best in this speech, and her acting is solid throughout the film, capturing Lee’s neurotic interiority. McCarthy has been talked about for a possible Oscar nomination, and, while she’s very good here, perhaps it’s the conversion of a superb comic into a serious actor that’s drawing that level of attention.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Judika

Feb 28, 2019

The Mother of all Flops... cheaply produced and so forth presented, underdeveloped characters, poorly written, the minimal literary craft of a novice, few surprises in a slothful plot, typical stock lgbtq characters.

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

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27	#27 Best Movie of 2018
96	#96 Most Discussed Movie of 2018