Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Watching Melissa McCarthy’s recent big-screen efforts it is easy to forget that she is an Academy Award nominated actress. Since her breakout role in Bridesmaids, she has often been hamstrung by sub-par scripts, predictable re-hashed premises, and pratfalls. Lots of pratfalls. She is a classic victim of Hollywood shortsightedness. Basically, studio executives saw how much money Bridesmaids made. They saw what she did in that film and decided to get her to do that same thing and just put a different title on the poster. What they failed to notice was that Bridesmaids also had another Oscar nomination, namely Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo’s sharp and witty script.

Which is a shame because, in the seven years that followed Bridesmaids, the world was largely deprived of Mellisa McCarthy’s amazing and undeniable talent. The talent which is painfully evident in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”, the retelling of the real-life story of author Lee Isreal. Here McCarthy gets to work off of a wonderful script by first time writer Jeff Whitty and veteran Nicole Holofcener (Orange Is The New Black, Parks and Recreation). This script is brilliantly realized by director Marielle Heller, who is making only her second feature following 2015’s critically acclaimed “The Diary of Teenage Girl”. Here Heller has crafted a film that is at once a hard-hitting drama, a hilarious buddy comedy, and a tense crime thriller. She also beautifully captures the early nineties, transporting the audience to a Manhattan of the past, inhabited by artists and outsiders. But more than that, together with Mccarthy, she transports the audience into the mind of a complicated character which conventional Hollywood wisdom would deem too unlikable to lead a movie; one of the first scenes has her stealing a coat from a party. Over the 106 minute runtime, we not only learn the reasons behind Lee’s bitter and cynical exterior but also come to sympathize with her often misguided choices. What makes this comprehensive character study more impressive is that the movie only focuses on a small segment of Lee’s life. We first meet her after her promising writing career has hit a dead end leaving her short on both money and friends. Lee desperately tries to find a way back into the shelves of local bookstores that have relegated her work to the bargain bin. In her desperation, she resorts to deception and forgery, ironically producing some of her best work in the process.

While Mellisa McCarthy is excellent and, dare I say, Oscar-worthy, she is also supported by a veritable cavalcade of veteran character actors, all of them bringing their A game. Chief among them is Richard E. Grant as the enigmatic smooth-talking gay man, Jack, who forms an unlikely, unconventional and tumultuous friendship with Lee. Then there is Dolly Wells as the bookstore owner, Anna, who is smitten with Lee despite being one of the victims of her racket. Both of these seasoned performers create electric chemistry with Mellisa McCarthy in their own way. Grant provides the energy to counter the inherent lethargy and malaise of McCarthy’s portrayal of Lee and Wells brings the much-needed tenderness with which she gainfully tries to poke through Lee’s tough shell. Also scattered throughout the film are brief cameos by actors such as Ben Falcone, Jane Curtin and Anna Deavere Smith all of whom leave their mark without needing more than a scene or two. As all these characters interact with Lee, Melissa McCarthy’s true range as an actor becomes clearly evident. She manages to be funny with Grant, romantic with Wells, paranoid with Falcone, angry with Curtin and vulnerable with Smith.

McCarthy is also aided by costume designer Arjun Bhasin (Life of Pi) and set decorator Sarah E. McMillan (Kill Your Darlings) who visually bring to life Lee’s inner despair. Bhasin dons her in brown tweed jackets and dull sweaters whereas McMillan puts her in an old, disorganized apartment and a small rundown bar.

On the whole, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” simultaneously manages to have amazing parts and be greater than the sum of those amazing parts. Each member of the cast and crew raises each other and together they create a type of movie that we do not get any more. This is more mild-mannered Taxi Driver with authors; an unapologetic look at a person who is completely alone in a world with which they do not connect, no matter how much it reaches out to them.