Wittier than Dorothy Parker

Lee Israel was a writer of celebrity biographies who fell on hard times. She turned to a creative form of crime to make ends meet, forging letters of famous writers as collectibles.

"Can You Ever Forgive Me?" based on a memoir by the late Ms. Israel that frankly I had never heard of (not that this fact means anything, except that I usually latch onto tales like this combining a little bit of entertainment with a lot of angst) is a movie that satisfied the existential in me, the "what's it all about" gene that I probably share with millions of others. I wasn't sure it would be so, though the summaries of the story were compelling, because I am not usually a big fan of the actress who portrays Ms. Israel, Melissa McCarthy.

Apparently Ms. Israel, even when she had marginal success, was a difficult person. She didn't bow to any authority, her public, her critics or the agent that could get her contracts.  She had few, if no, friends. She did have a cat. She loved cats more than people.  She was lousy at relationships. Her former lover (played in the movie by Anna Deavere Smith) cannot be attracted back into Israel's life when trouble (the law) begins to pursue her, because Israel is unable to let anyone close. More than that, being so difficult a person, let's just say, "complex", she affirmatively pushes people away.

It is after selling a legitimate letter sent to her by one of her subjects of the 1970s, Katherine Hepburn, that Israel realizes she can recreate the letters of others, Noel Coward, and Dorothy Parker, a bit of a difficult lady herself in her time, make money by selling them to collectors, and indulge her creative side, which has been cruelly quelched. Her apartment becomes a store-room of typewriters of every writing generation. And she either traces or expertly copies the signatures. After a while, she creates forgeries from archives and replaces them with some of her copies. She was prodigious. If I recall, she did about 400 of these letters, two of which actually ended up in a book about Noel Coward, until the fraud was discovered.

Broken attracts broken, I suppose, and she manages to attract a man named Jack Hock into her life, not as a relationship--they are both gay--but as a kind of accomplice. Jack drinks, smokes and carouses, a path that will ultimately kill him as so often it does--and he is not exactly a reliable partner in crime. Oh, and he kills her cat, Jersey, accidentally.

She gets caught, of course. Jack snitches after using her apartment as a love nest while Israel is away at an archive in pursuit of her complete downfall.

One of the letters ends up in an antiquarian shop, and, during her probation, she inquires of the owner what is the price to buy it. The forgery, having been "authenticated" by "experts", is for sale at an exquisite price commensurable with authentication.

It is so wonderful. One wants it to have been by Dorothy Parker.

"Alan told me to write and apologize.  So I am doing that now, while he dresses our Turkey dinner with the boys across the road.  I have a hangover that is a real museum piece.  I'm sure then that I must have said something terrible.  To save me this kind of exertion in the future, I am thinking of having little letters runoff (sic) saying 'Can you ever forgive me?'  Dorothy.

Can you ever forgive me?"

Though initially dismissed by the elitist letter seller, Lee Israel proves to him that it is indeed a fake. He thinks about taking it out of its prominent window space with its prominent price. Then he puts it back.

Though required to abstain from alcohol, Israel returns to her favorite bar, where she meets up with the now sick, and still full of the glories of the life he still fantasies to have had.  Israel has a new idea. She will write a memoir about the caper. Jack agrees to be in the memoir (although apparently Israel didn't write much about his specific part in the events). They part the strangers they have always remained, to each other, to themselves.

Lee Israel goes back to her apartment on Riverside Drive in New York. She gets a kitten.

I really liked this movie. I really liked the performances of McCarthy, and Richard E. Grant as Jack. I liked this movie because I saw real people in the characters. I got lost in them. It's rare that that happens when watching a movie these days.

I recommend it, for whatever that is worth. Here's the thing too. I think I kind of sympathize with Lee Israel's broken road of creativity. And I far too often like cats more than people.