Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)
Country: US
Technical: col/2.39:1 106m
Director: Marielle Heller
Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells
Synopsis:
New York in the Nineties, and an out-of-step writer desperate to pay her bills resorts to forging letters from vintage literary celebrities, when she discovers a market for such things among the booksellers of Manhattan.
Review:
Both a lit-fest that never quite allows its passion for written punditry to bloom, and an 'As Good as it Gets' style bromance that holds out on both halves of that promise, this based-on-fact story of a hoax that went sour at least stays true to the vein of cynicism running through it. It is really a two-hander, with McCarthy playing a not terribly nice drain of a human being with admirably restrained sentiment, and Grant a flamboyant radiator of bonhomie, as pitiable as he is irresponsible; BAFTA and Oscar nominations for them both ensued, but the film remained a mere curiosity, enshrining Lee Israel's misdirected talent for mimicry while failing to avoid a certain queasiness at its centre.
Country: US
Technical: col/2.39:1 106m
Director: Marielle Heller
Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells
Synopsis:
New York in the Nineties, and an out-of-step writer desperate to pay her bills resorts to forging letters from vintage literary celebrities, when she discovers a market for such things among the booksellers of Manhattan.
Review:
Both a lit-fest that never quite allows its passion for written punditry to bloom, and an 'As Good as it Gets' style bromance that holds out on both halves of that promise, this based-on-fact story of a hoax that went sour at least stays true to the vein of cynicism running through it. It is really a two-hander, with McCarthy playing a not terribly nice drain of a human being with admirably restrained sentiment, and Grant a flamboyant radiator of bonhomie, as pitiable as he is irresponsible; BAFTA and Oscar nominations for them both ensued, but the film remained a mere curiosity, enshrining Lee Israel's misdirected talent for mimicry while failing to avoid a certain queasiness at its centre.
Country: US
Technical: col/2.39:1 106m
Director: Marielle Heller
Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells
Synopsis:
New York in the Nineties, and an out-of-step writer desperate to pay her bills resorts to forging letters from vintage literary celebrities, when she discovers a market for such things among the booksellers of Manhattan.
Review:
Both a lit-fest that never quite allows its passion for written punditry to bloom, and an 'As Good as it Gets' style bromance that holds out on both halves of that promise, this based-on-fact story of a hoax that went sour at least stays true to the vein of cynicism running through it. It is really a two-hander, with McCarthy playing a not terribly nice drain of a human being with admirably restrained sentiment, and Grant a flamboyant radiator of bonhomie, as pitiable as he is irresponsible; BAFTA and Oscar nominations for them both ensued, but the film remained a mere curiosity, enshrining Lee Israel's misdirected talent for mimicry while failing to avoid a certain queasiness at its centre.