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Can You Ever Forgive Me? · The Next Reel Film Podcast

• 0:04
  Pete Wright: I'm Pete Wright.
• 0:05
  Andy Nelson: And I'm Andy Nelson.
• 0:07
  Pete Wright: Welcome to the next reel. When the movie ends
• 0:09
  Andy Nelson: Our conversation begins.
• 0:11
  Pete Wright: Can You Ever Forgive Me? is over.
• 0:14
  Nobody wants a book about Fanny Brice. Really a lot of anti Fanny Brice on behalf of the publishing industry in this movie. This this might be the clarion call for biographers of Fanny Brice to rectify this situation.
• 0:37
  Andy Nelson: Are you saying that because you are working on your own Fanny Brice biography right now? Is that amazing.
• 0:43
  Pete Wright: That would be amazing. Andy, I have something to tell you.
• 0:48
  Andy Nelson: This is By the way This is project.
• 0:50
  Pete Wright: This is my series. We're doing my series now. It's my turn, which is most of the second half of the year, where we are talking about true lies. These are films that are based on true stories of deception, fraud, broken trust. And so we're we're gonna be talking about stories of con artists and fabricators and frauds of various stripes.
• 1:12
  And this week, we are jumping into the rarefied world of literary forgery, everybody's favorite kind of forgery, literary forgery. And we get a movie in the form of, can you ever forgive me, that puts Richard e Grant, cult icon, actor who has been Cult icon for the one movie. For that one movie, that one time. Gold. El Machina del Oro, Handy.
• 1:42
  What we've talked about once on Nuts and Hawk.
• 1:44
  Andy Nelson: We have. Yes, indeed.
• 1:45
  Pete Wright: Who has been on the long march to getting some sort of Hollywood recognition. This was the movie that got him a nomination. We're gonna talk about that in a bit. We also have Melissa McCarthy doing a straight up serious role, playing the role of of Lee Israel in this, journey through her malfeasance. I remember I saw it later than you, and I remember we did it as a there was a trailer pick on one of the sum up shows, and I I think we were both looking forward to it.
• 2:15
  You saw it, and I didn't see it for a long time after that because I thought your initial take on it was a bummer. Interesting. Okay. Okay. Has that changed for
• 2:26
  Andy Nelson: you at all? That my take is a bummer? Yeah.
• 2:29
  Pete Wright: Well Yeah. About you just being a huge bummer?
• 2:31
  Andy Nelson: I mean, it's not it's not like a movie that I love, but I think that it's an interesting story and I enjoy looking I I enjoy the story. I think it's a fascinating glimpse into this this person and the journey that she took in kind of falling deeper and deeper into her criminal activity. And I I think that's fascinating. Plus, you know, I'm a huge fan of Melissa McCarthy, and I've, you know, I did my whole Melissa McCarthy chronological watch of all of her feature films. I luckily finished that before the Jerry Seinfeld, Unfrosted came out.
• 3:10
  So I I haven't. I still feel like I should be obligated to do that. But since Melissa hasn't had another movie since, I haven't haven't dived into that one, but I'm I'm hesitant. Regardless bad.
• 3:24
  Pete Wright: I'm sorry. It's so bad. Don't That's the love
• 3:27
  Andy Nelson: I of know. I really just need to have limits. But I did do her chronological watch. I watched everything that she's done, and I love watching her work. I think she's a a fun actress and very funny.
• 3:41
  And so, yeah, it's it's enjoyable to see when a comedic performer like this is giving given something that's much more serious. And it's not the first time that she's done anything with any seriousness in it. I would say it's probably the the most serious she's been in a film. But yeah. I mean, it's it's not my favorite film, but I do think it's interesting.
• 4:06
  Pete Wright: Okay. I I'm not gonna put you in a position of defending why it's not your favorite film. That but but I do think there is a lot going on here and a lot of really interesting material based on source material that comes from, can you ever forgive me, the biography by Lee Israel. And blessed be Lee Israel for writing briefly. Lee's audiobook.
• 4:29
  Andy Nelson: Hey. She's good at writing letters. We know she's good at writing briefly. Yeah. Do for sure.
• 4:35
  Pete Wright: She crushed it. Now first of all, the book, the audiobook is two hours and forty minutes long. Second, the audiobook has no wait time via Libby, my library app. So I was able to download the audiobook and listen to the whole thing in one fell swoop, and it was a wonderful experience to watch back to back with this movie because of just how accurate the material is to the book. Everything from from there was a moment at the very end where Richard e Grant is suffering, and he's walking with a cane, and he stands up to walk out of a restaurant.
• 5:12
  And she says, as he stands up, it's funny that the one thing that I wanted to do right now was trip you, and they both start laughing. I thought that was the probably the most Melissa McCarthy moment in the book. It felt most true to who I know as Melissa McCarthy in the film. That's Lee Israel. That's from the book.
• 5:31
  That line was from the book. I think that that kind of stuff is really, really interesting. So there are a lot of moments in this movie that I felt were cinematic and were and, you know, made specifically for the purposes of the movie, and it ended up being pulled right from the pages from her life. That is something to to, I I think, recognize. It is an honorific for a movie like this to be so attuned to the source material and not really lose much of the thread of what makes it a good story in the first place.
• 6:04
  Andy Nelson: I mean, I haven't read the book, and I've never read any of the biographies that Lee Israel had written. Me neither. Yeah. So this was really my only experience with her as as a person. And, and so, yeah, it's funny because that moment that you call out as being kind of the most Melissa McCarthy, I can definitely see why you would say that because it's it's just kind of a comedic beat between these two people of just kind of something that would be physical comedy.
• 6:38
  When you talk about it, it wouldn't be physical comedy had she actually done it. It would have been kind of malicious. But I I think I think that's the that's the portrait that is being painted of of Lee is that this is a woman who is I mean, she talks about it. She doesn't like people. And it's fascinating that she's found anything to latch onto with Jack, but she has because they both, like, kind of fill a void in each other's lives.
• 7:09
  Right? And but even then, with that relationship with Jack, and I mean, granted, it's past a point where they've kind of split up as friends, and this is that kind of final meeting point. But it still shows how she still can't get rid of or disguise that kind of malicious nature that is kind of at her core. And just like the saying the snippy thing or doing the doing the practical joke or whatever, like, that's just kind of in her personality, and she has a hard time separating that even in a moment like that.
• 7:43
  Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's true. I I think what we get with this character, and the way the way I sort of look at this movie in the spirit of the series of true lies, that this one is weirdly sympathetic. It's a weirdly sympathetic portrait of a liar in this series because she's not ultimately a sociopath.
• 8:04
  Right? She's not pathological. She is she's not charming at all. She's a bitter drunk broke and and broke, and she she becomes or discovers that she is brilliant at writing fake letters in the voices of classic literary figures, and she shouldn't be good at this. Right?
• 8:26
  But she's enterprising and desperate, and so she has to take this skill and turn it into something economically viable. That's what brings us this chapter of her life that lasted about two years. And over the course of those two years, she wrote over a 100,000 words in the voices of these literary figures. That's a book I would want to read. I would love to read a book of letters forged by Lee Israel.
• 8:56
  I don't know if if they exist anymore, but that's one of the things that that I think come I come away with that she really is exceptional or was exceptional at writing in the voices of these at embodying the voices of these peep people. This is identity theft in its most literal sense. Right? She she is trying to inhabit other writers' voices so completely that others can't tell the difference. And and that's more than just the artistry of copying a signature.
• 9:29
  That is embellishment of a life in these people, in their words. And I I think that is a a really interesting angle of of deception that we get embodied by McCarthy here. The last thing that I wanna make sure is out there is that this is this is also a a movie about the economy and and the struggles of arts to to find a capitalist reward. Right? She's she's desperate.
• 9:59
  Nobody will buy her work anymore. And and how did she get to a point that she has lost so much? And and so one of the questions I think the movie is kind of poking at is and the story is poking at is, how how did we get to a place where we've driven these incredibly talented people to do such desperate things? Whose fault is it? And does it is it does it make it worse that she was driven to this outcome, or does it make it easier to to kind of embrace that maybe it wasn't all Lee Israel's fault?
• 10:33
  Andy Nelson: There's an interesting element that we get with Lee as a character and a person, and it speaks to I I think it speaks to the danger of falling into a space like this where she's forging these letters and realizes she's good at forging these letters. And the danger that comes of well, I I suppose the danger that comes is one that she becomes I don't know if blase is the right word, but she becomes maybe too casual in her approach to how she's doing it because she's just like, she feels so confident. Overconfident is probably the word I'm looking for. Mhmm. Which is probably partly what also gets her caught because she's overconfident in how good she is.
• 11:27
  You know, these people are buying these. I mean, think in the end credits, it says she's ended up writing over 400 of these letters. That leads to her downfall, but it also it's like this element of hubris that she has that she's not able to kind of avoid. And I think that ends up being part of her downfall because she becomes she becomes too overconfident in her skills. I mean, to the point where she says, I'm a better Dorothy Parker than Dorothy Parker.
• 11:55
  And I think that speaks so much to how how far down this hole she fell into just, you know, believing how good she was at this. And and it's incredibly dangerous place. And that's, I think, what probably how a lot of people who fall into crime end up where they are because they realize, god, I'm really good at this, and I'm better than all these other people. And, you know, I I deserve this because I'm so good. And I think that's kind of the the portrait we get of her.
• 12:24
  Pete Wright: She's she was, I mean, she was drinking all the time. Right? There's there is no question to me that she was an alf alcoholic. Functioning, maybe high functioning alcoholic. She was an alcoholic.
• 12:35
  There is is really something to the parallel of looking at this new skill that she has, which she originally started doing out of desperation because she wanted her old cat to get meds, and she wanted to pay the rent, and she I mean, these were short term resolutions that she was seeking, and she discovered that she could do this forgery stuff and make a few bucks. But just like, you know, the addiction to alcohol, she became, I think to your point, quickly addicted to her ability to do this. And yet, again, like her addiction to alcohol, she never actually made real good at it. Later in the movie, she is approached by one of the buyers who tells her, look, the FBI was here. I'm not gonna turn you in.
• 13:20
  I'm not gonna rat you out, but you are gonna pay me $5,000. And she says, I don't have $5,000. Well, unlike a lot of of cons and grifters that we run into in these movies, she never really made enough money to get beyond her expenses. Right? To get her out of destitution and be able to just drop $5,000 on a bribery, on the casual afternoon bribery.
• 13:48
  And and we see that because she then has to go get Jack to sell letters on her behalf to make enough money to pay this guy off. So there's there's really no question in my mind that she she just became addicted to this new skill. I think that's a great point.
• 14:06
  Andy Nelson: And at the same time, whereas, you know, she's complaining about Tom Clancy getting his $3,000,000. $3,000,000, book deal, and she can't even get a $10,000 signing bonus, with her agent. She's writing letters and I mean, yeah, she she does a lot of them, but still, there's a limit to how big that market is. And you can't just write tons of stuff and flood it. And she's only getting I mean, you know, some are getting like a couple.
• 14:35
  I I think the most we ever hear her getting is like maybe $600 or something like that. It's never that big. And so she's found something she's good at, but it's also like, well, it's not a huge win. You know? It's and that's and that's, I think, what's kind of funny is that she's really good at this, but it's like, yeah.
• 14:53
  But it's kind of in the in the realm of things. It's kind of a mediocre skill. Like, you wanna be if you wanna have that, find a way to use it for something where you can get a little more money than that. Because yeah. Because she has no money left.
• 15:06
  Like, she's she's probably gotten herself to a point where she's now has enough to not have to worry about rent or her cat or She can clearly buy booze. Or alcohol. Right. So she's got enough money, but clearly, she's I don't know. She doesn't seem to have enough saved.
• 15:22
  So
• 15:23
  Pete Wright: Yeah. And that's the that that becomes, like, the fact that her her act of of creation is forgery is one thing. The fact that the forgeries are really, really good, and and again, not just that they look good and that she's got she bakes her paper and to age it, and she buys all of the old typewriters that would have been used by these people. All of that is is, I think, presented pretty subtly. Like, we don't have a typewriter buying montage.
• 15:49
  You know? We we get a little bit of the paper search, which I think is is lovely. But but what we get is this when he was talking about the market being fairly small, we get this exploration that culminates in an experience in court where she and her attorney and the government are on the other side. She and her attorney are there and the court in a giant courtroom that is empty beyond these, like, six people. That is such a stunning tableau to me that all of this that she's created equals something that no one cares about enough to show up to the courtroom.
• 16:31
  No press. No nothing. Nobody cares about this, which I think says a lot about the place where she fit into this very tiny, tiny market of collectors who collect letters written from one person to someone else.
• 16:48
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. I think that's an interesting point that this is again, she's just not creating something that is that is memorable. I mean, sadly, the thing that's probably most memorable now about Lee Israel is that she did this. But again, even then, it's kind of a footnote. Right?
• 17:06
  It's not like in that scope of that world, I'm sure it was bigger. But, yeah, I think that it said a lot that in the way that the court is portrayed, that's just like it's an empty space. Like, no one cares enough about her.
• 17:18
  Pete Wright: I hope, and I don't know the answer to this question, but I hope she made enough off the book and the rights to the movie that she was able to live the last years of her life in more comfort than is portrayed here. She is a, as a human being, much more hard edged writer than Melissa McCarthy portrays her in the movie. This this book is acidic in its use of of words, and it's powerful and funny, but also it's a much harder book than the
• 17:51
  Andy Nelson: movie ever displays. Well, she died before the movie came out.
• 17:58
  Pete Wright: Never saw it.
• 17:59
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. Never had the chance. So she wasn't profiting off of that sale at all. There was controversy about her memoir when it did get published. One reviewer wrote, what this is is a hilarious memoir of a self described miscreant and her pursuit of a meal ticket.
• 18:15
  Ironically, in a joke, the reader will share by purchasing her book, we all participate in buying her that meal. So I think that people would recognize that, but at the same time, it's just one of those dark things. But that's I think that's the case that we get out of any biographical story about someone who's less than savory. Right? Like it's it's hard to like these characters.
• 18:42
  And I think that's for me, one of the things that makes this a harder watch for me because we're not given a real easy protagonist to like. There's really nothing about Lee that that is is pleasant. I guess you could say in the scope of, like, is there a save the cat moment? Yeah. Literally, she saves her cat.
• 19:07
  That's why she goes into crime so she can get the money to save her cat. So is that good enough? You know? And it's, you know, they cast Melissa McCarthy. I think Mariel Heller, who, directed this, I think, smartly recognized casting a comedic actress like Melissa, who brings with her already kind of a such a likable personality that even though she's so unlikable in the film, it helps seeing Melissa there because you know, okay.
• 19:42
  Yeah. But I know I know she's a likable person. And so you can kind of that makes it easier. But it still is a hard film, and I think that's for me, one of the biggest difficulties with really connecting with the film. I mean, I find it interesting, but it's hard to connect with a character who is just so unlikable.
• 19:59
  Like, she pushes everybody away. We hear about that when she meets up with her ex. We see that when she goes out with Anna, and how horrible that the kind of the departure after their that date is. I mean, just just things like when she's when they're sitting at the table and and Anna says something, it's nice. We're together.
• 20:21
  We're having a nice time together. And she says, yeah. I need another drinking buddy. Like, she's so like, that's it's just almost intuitive in how her body reacts to somebody trying to get close to her. Like, her immediate reaction is to come up with something caustic to push them away.
• 20:41
  Pete Wright: And I think I I think when you talk about, like, the adaptation of of the real person as embodied by Melissa McCarthy, this performance is fantastic. Right? She is. You're right. She's a likable person, but she embodies Lee Israel beautifully.
• 20:57
  Right? This was Lee Israel. She was a caustic, hard edged person who saw everything through the armor of sarcasm and cynicism and wielded that like a weapon against people who were even ostensibly close to her. I think Melissa McCarthy, by giving us only that hint of sweetness that might exist in her, that might give us a little bit of hope that she was, in fact, a change character in this movie, was perfect by the end by that conversation with Jack. Like, we get this embodiment of apology.
• 21:36
  And this this is another thing that I think comes in from the book, which is she does not feel bad about doing this in in itself. She does not feel bad about committing fraud. What she feels bad about is that she broke relationships with people that she had had come to like because she betrayed them, because she took advantage of them. That was the piece that she regretted, not the fact that she was forging these historical artifacts. I think Melissa McCarthy nails that complexity.
• 22:10
  Andy Nelson: Oh, I think she does. And I think that's you know, it's always nice to see that I I love when comedic actors have a chance to prove that they can do so much more than just the funny stuff. And Melissa McCarthy's great at it. She doesn't tap into it often, but when she does, I think she nails it. Alright.
• 22:28
  We're gonna take a quick break, but first, you can find the show on YouTube, and you can join us live when we record. We'll even take your questions in the post show chitchat live. Everyone is welcome, and members get the replay and the extended cut. Subscribe to the next reel on YouTube. The link to this episode is in the show notes.
• 22:45
  We'll be right back. One of the
• 22:47
  Pete Wright: things that I think these movies often try to leverage is the exposure. Right? And the third act is is much more about the fall and retribution of these criminals. And this movie is remarkably gentle on that part. Right?
• 23:04
  She is caught. They trace these letters. There are some uncomfortable moments of gotcha. But overall, this movie leading up to the court scene and sentencing, it's really gentle. Do you think the movie lets off our protagonist too easy?
• 23:26
  Andy Nelson: The movie as opposed to the real life story. You know, I don't think so. Because my the way that I read the court scene is I feel like when she hears the verdict being given, there's a sense of her that feels it should have been stronger. Mhmm. That's kind of how I saw that play out.
• 23:53
  And so I don't think the movie's letting her I don't think she's letting herself off the hook, you know, and I I think what she goes through and what she says there, I think, gives her that moment. I don't know. How did you read it?
• 24:06
  Pete Wright: Well, I this was this is the cognitive dissonance that I think comes with this movie and with this whole story. Because, again, the the way this thing resolves is exactly the way her life resolved. Right? She ends up with six months house arrest, five years or four and a half more years of probation. That's what we get in the movie.
• 24:24
  I think it's another symptom of the fact that nobody cares about this crime. And while I expected the movie to be harder on her as a person, I think that's part of the discomfort. The fact that I think she should have been treated more harshly is really more of of a feeling like the world should have treated this crime more harshly, and it didn't. Right? The movie makes a great case for the fact that she has betrayed a lot of people, and she is is you know?
• 24:56
  But, ultimately, the court's looking at this and probably saying, and Lee says it in her book, I think the dealers came out ahead as a result of this 91 to 93 exploit of forgeries that they they ended up making probably more money. And we have this beautiful moment at the very end of the movie where one of the dealers gets a letter. She walks by the store. She sees one of her letters framed and walks in and asks how much he's selling it for. He says, I'm selling it for $1,900.
• 25:28
  Andy Nelson: And it comes with a letter of authenticity.
• 25:30
  Pete Wright: Of authenticity, of providence. Right? Of authenticity. Is the the letter of authenticity authenticated? He says, oh, no.
• 25:37
  She goes home and writes another forged letter. But this time, it's really of Dorothy Parker. In the voice of Dorothy Parker, but it's really about Lee Israel having created this letter, and he sends it to her. He now
• 25:49
  Andy Nelson: She sends it to him.
• 25:49
  Pete Wright: Or sends it to him. Pronouns, man. He sends it to she sends it to him. He opens the letter and reads it, walks to the front window, starts taking the forged letter out of the display window, thinks twice, and puts it back because he is eventually going to sell it again. If that isn't a testament to the entire nonsense of the market of collectibles like this, I don't know what is.
• 26:17
  I I think me being uncomfortable about all of this is the point, and I think Heller and McCarthy deliver it perfectly.
• 26:26
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. I I think that's a very telling moment, and I think it's it speaks to the nature of capitalism and this sort of these sales when they're just like, well, you know, I'll be able to sell sell it anyway. Yeah. Who's gonna question me on this letter of authenticity I have? It doesn't matter if it's Lee Israel.
• 26:44
  You know?
• 26:44
  Pete Wright: You know who's as desperate as Lee Israel was to make a buck? Small book own bookstore owners. Like, come on. It's a hard market out there for words. Yeah.
• 26:54
  Andy Nelson: We hear Anna talk about it. It's a difficult business. So
• 26:57
  Pete Wright: Okay. Can can we talk about big moments for a movie that is ultimately fairly understated? What did you find yourself watching the movie and thinking, oh my god. I am moved. I am provoked to emotion.
• 27:10
  Andy Nelson: No. No. I well, I I guess though that I I shouldn't say that. I'm just being a little cheeky. But the the moment for me, interestingly, never really had to do with Lee and her quest to get the money that she needed to or the money for through her sales, but it's actually the moment where she's decided to step things up and takes a page from Jack's book of criminal activities and decides to, okay, I'm just gonna now go to a library that has these letters from these famous people in their archives.
• 27:53
  I'm going to pretend I'm doing research. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to create my own version of that letter, and then I'm going to put my fake version in place of that and steal the original. That ends up being what she does. While she's doing that, she foolishly, I don't know why she thought this was ever a smart thing to do, entrusted Jack to take care of her apartment and her cat. Because by this time, she knows that Jack is homeless and just wanders around and looks for people to sleep with, essentially.
• 28:30
  And he brings a guy over, and they fool around to take a bunch of drugs. He accidentally gives too much medication to the cat who dies. And I think that scene when she comes home did hit me, like that kind of breakup of their friendship because he thought he was doing what he needed to do properly, but didn't actually listen to how much medicine the cat needed and gave too much and the cat ended up dying because of it. Like that whole sequence, I think played well for me. And that I think in the scope of a character who had finally created this friendship with somebody, that became the wall that said, oh, this is why I shouldn't have taken you down because I can't trust anybody.
• 29:19
  Humans are all awful. My cat was the only thing worthy. And I think that for me was a, you know, telling moment in her story.
• 29:27
  Pete Wright: Yeah. I think so too. That was that was definitely one on my list. I think, of of moments that moved me, and I think the the way they play the life of the cat, the uncertainty of the cat's health is one of awesome sort of threat because there are a number of moments where he's calling the cat, she's calling the cat, where you think, okay. The cat's dead, and we have we're gonna have to deal with that.
• 29:53
  But the cat's not dead. Right? Until the cat is dead and we actually find it under the couch, the cat's not dead. And I thought the cat was dead many times throughout the movie. I thought we were gonna discover the dead cat.
• 30:06
  And so I think it played well. It built a lot of sort of emotional intensity for the cat. Cat plays an important role. The other piece I think we get we get Richard Grant's, you know, theft confessional when there's after he has started selling letters on her behalf, we find out that he's been pocketing cash on his way back to her. And just watching him squirm in that scene while she uncovers the truth and recognizing that that math is not his strong suit, that he's he slipped, and and watching their relationship in that scene fall apart.
• 30:46
  That was an empowering a powerful moment for me. I thought that was was extraordinarily well performed. And, of course, the bits about selling the papers. The every time she went in to meet with somebody, there's the threat of exposure. And I think the movie handles those relationships and those those nuanced engagements really very well, all the way up to to your point.
• 31:09
  And I will say from the book again, she apparently did this this, spent a long time researching security systems in university research libraries, and we only get one of those in the movie. That was compressed pretty heavily. I can't imagine any sort of endeavor that would put me under that kind of potential exposure repeatedly. Enormous threat. That's a lot.
• 31:38
  That's a lot.
• 31:38
  Andy Nelson: I just thought of one other moment, and I already talked about it a little bit, but it I think absolutely the date with Anna. Ugh. And I think it's because Anna is such a good person and just a kind character who is looking for a connection in this difficult world and finds it in what she thinks is Lee. And they they have this date, and it seems it seems like things could potentially be going in the right direction. But at every turn, Lee keeps pushing her away during the date, afterward when they're outside talking, the way that Lee just kind of, know, says, okay.
• 32:19
  Well, I'm going that way. See you later. And just kinda, like, just walks away. It's just like everything was just like, man, that is just so hurtful. And I I don't think I think I don't know.
• 32:30
  It's interesting. I think Lee recognizes how hurtful she's being, but can't help herself from doing it. Like, I think that's just kind of her personality.
• 32:40
  Pete Wright: I think you're I I think you're on it. Like, I think that's the whole she is it's like her identity is part of a machine that she can't entirely control. Yeah. Right? Like, she's she's she's the little alien in the Men in Black alien inside the face.
• 32:58
  And she's trying, but it's like the controls got wet or something.
• 33:01
  Andy Nelson: Or that Eddie Murphy movie where he's got all the little Yes. Meet meet Dave. Is that what that was?
• 33:07
  Pete Wright: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Right. I just felt like so much of this and that that McCarthy is doing is is playing somebody who is out of control and does not have any mechanism, any accommodation to stop it.
• 33:21
  Yeah. The words just keep coming out of her mouth.
• 33:23
  Andy Nelson: Which, I mean, maybe that is why she and Jack get along so well. Because Jack's exactly the same. Cannot stop with the all the little thieving that he's doing. Like, he talks about that. He's, you know, his his shoplifting that it's really hard.
• 33:39
  It was hard for him to actually get to a place where he could stop and and yet he still can't because as you said, he's stealing the money from her. Like, he just can't stop. It's just like one of these things. It's uncontrollable. And same thing with his sex.
• 33:52
  Like, when that leads to his own demise. Right? Like, he just can't stop from from sleeping around with any cute guy that happens to be around, and that leads to him getting AIDS and dying.
• 34:03
  Pete Wright: It's I mean, it's it's the tragic story of these people who just are unable to kind of control their, their natures so that they can have a better path forward. It's really it's the unstoppable train. Right? Like, it's you just I I think from the moment she does that first forgery, from the moment she engages with Jack in Giulio's bar, we know that this is that this relationship on a very human level is going to destroy itself. And I I don't mind that being telegraphed.
• 34:37
  Like, that's that's one of the the tropes in the movie that actually, I think, plays very, very well. We know we know it's a trope because it works in this case.
• 34:48
  Andy Nelson: It's interesting, like, just speaking to that, the nature of these people, how and this, I think, goes to just kind of the maliciousness that we were talking about earlier. The fact that even just in her, theoretically, her good working relationships. I mean, not talking about, like, her opening scene where she's working, like, in the middle of the night in the, like, the legal the legal office doing kind of the late night case notes and whatever. But when she's interacting with her actual agent Jane Curtin. She still is a terrible per yeah.
• 35:21
  Jane Curtin is so great. I just love her in this. She's a very small part, but she's just so great. She's just a terrible person when it comes to everything involving that relationship. You know?
• 35:33
  And I mean, I get it. She's frustrated, but she's also not ever listening to her agent. And that's one thing that you're supposed to do when you have agents. But one of the reasons is it's not they're not just there to get you stuff. You also need to listen to them.
• 35:46
  And if she says nobody wants a biography about Fanny Brice, maybe that's your cue to say, okay. Well, let me find a different thing and work on that instead. But that she keeps falling into these things that I mean, it's not gonna make anybody like her. And Jane Curtin tells her, like, you need to be a nicer person. She does all these practical jokes.
• 36:07
  I mean, they're funny to us as we watch because it's funny to them as they're doing them. But they're just terrible, and nobody ends up liking that. Like, I guarantee that Jane Curtin's character is just incredibly frustrated that Lee Israel keeps fake calling her, pretending to be Nora Ephron. And it's terrible that they call this bookstore owner and say, hey. Your building is burning.
• 36:27
  Your dog's inside. Like, it's just like it's just awful. Like, they're just awful, awful people.
• 36:34
  Pete Wright: That is one thing that I thought was interesting about the the experience of the book versus the movie. In the movie, we get this this sense that it is Jack's influence that drives her to these prank calls and doing all these these things. In the book, that's very early on, and it's very clearly Lee Israel is it's her idea. She's the one who got the cease and desist from Dora Effort saying stop calling people and pretending to be me. Like, she was she was a rapscallion to the core.
• 37:03
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. It's amazing that she was able to kind of build a career at all. But I think that also speaks, that's another element of the story is like, this is a person who, as she says later admits in court, like, she's a coward. She's afraid to actually put herself out there because she's afraid of what I mean, because she knows. She she does have enough sense to recognize herself as a very difficult person to like.
• 37:28
  And by putting herself out there, she's gonna be taking all that judgment in, and she doesn't want that, especially when it comes to her creative output. I mean, she's okay with people, you know, like, when she is mean to her boss or her agent, and her agent tells her you're not a nice person. She gets that, but she can't handle the idea of somebody criticizing a piece of writing that she actually put herself into, which is why she doesn't. And she writes these biographies of all these random people, Estee Lauder and Fanny Brice and whatever.
• 37:59
  Pete Wright: She is creatively putting herself constantly at arm's length. Right? She's back pocketing who she is in order to write in the voice or on behalf of others. And, you know, Kilgarn and and Estee Lauder, all the everything she's already done is exact exemplifies this part of her identity and why she's been afraid her entire life to actually write something that's hers. And it's why it it's what makes her act of sitting down and writing the true story of can you forgive me, an act of of courage, of weirdly placed yet laudable courage.
• 38:40
  If you separate all the criminality out of it, I think having her be able to say through watering eyes at the end of the movie, I think it's I need I I don't know what it is, but I feel like right now, I need to write about us. I thought that was an incredibly powerful exploration of who she was meant to be all along. And what would we have gotten had Lee Israel been brave enough to write in that voice fifty years prior?
• 39:08
  Andy Nelson: That's kind of the journey with these sorts of characters that it'll be interesting to see over the course of this series how, like, trying to look at their life had they not taken this path. Had they instead recognized where they were and been able to redirect themselves before they fell down this road. I can't remember the rest of the films in this series as far as, like like, you talked about Lee falling into it largely because out of need, out of necessity to pay for her. She was three months behind on her rent. Her cat was needing medical care that she couldn't afford, like all of these different things, and she kind of just accidentally falls into it because she just needs that money and needs it quick.
• 39:54
  It'll be interesting to see. Like, every one of them though is gonna have an element of justification as to why they think this is gonna be okay to do this.
• 40:05
  Pete Wright: I I wonder if we're gonna hang a hat on that line because I I'm not sure if all of them have that. So and I think I think that will be firmly tested next week. We'll talk about that in a bit. Interesting. I wanna talk about the research porn.
• 40:23
  Because every time I see any sort of montage about, you know, making research sexy, I, of course, think about the girl with the dragon tattoo. Oh my god.
• 40:32
  Andy Nelson: Always the one you
• 40:33
  Pete Wright: bring up. Yep. Always the one I bring up because research is so sexy. And here we do. We have montage of of forgery forgery excitement.
• 40:42
  Do you did you find any of that just straight up compelling filmmaking?
• 40:48
  Andy Nelson: I don't think so. I I think it was fine. Like, it was fine, but nothing nothing about the filmmaking in this stood out to me as, like, exciting or compelling or unique or done in a way that I hadn't seen before. You know, it all was stuff that I'd seen and it all I mean, it all worked fine. It told the story, but nothing got me excited about that.
• 41:12
  Did it did it for you?
• 41:13
  Pete Wright: Oh, you know, yeah. I well, I don't wanna say that it's stuff that I've seen before because I I mean, even though the each individual component I've seen before, never in the context of Leah's real story, and that matters. And watching her, like, take paper out of the oven and buy those typewriters, like, just knowing who she was as part of the story, found that was really compelling. I loved watching the these pans across her typewriters where she has, you know, note cards that say this was Dorothy Parker's typewriter. This was Noel Cowards.
• 41:45
  This was like, I really enjoy the mechanics of her forgery operation. From the moment she discovers that she needs a backlight and puts her TV up on its on its back so that she can write on top of it as a trace through mechanism. And the fact that they keep the TV on its back for the rest of the movie, I thought was was genuinely interesting mechanical portrayal of the of the work that she was doing. And and so I was in it. Like, would I say it's, like, sexy like Dragon Tattoo?
• 42:20
  No. I don't think it was sexy like Dragon Tattoo. But I was I definitely bought into the momentum that the film was building by demonstrating her acquisition of skill or her perfection of skill over the course of a short period of time. I think the film does that very, very well.
• 42:37
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. I mean, I think it does. I think it it gets the job done. It's funny. You made me think about the fact that Tom Hanks collects typewriters.
• 42:46
  Yes. It makes you wonder why. Yeah. Well, not anymore. I don't wonder.
• 42:51
  I did. Now now we know why he really is doing it. He Yeah. He's just much better at it than Lee Israel is.
• 42:57
  Pete Wright: He is. And that's where he's made all of his wealth is from high end forgeries the collector's money.
• 43:03
  Andy Nelson: It'd be funny if he was doing it, but really it was just letters that Tom Hanks had written. He was forging his own. Well, I already wrote this one, but you know what? Do you
• 43:11
  Pete Wright: know what's funny about Tom Hanks though? He actually forges typewriters Every time, he just buys typewriters, copies them, and sells them to collectors.
• 43:19
  Andy Nelson: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lee Israel, her source was Tom Hanks.
• 43:24
  To buy typewriters.
• 43:26
  Pete Wright: That's right.
• 43:27
  Andy Nelson: Well, I guess that's it. So it's about time for what we like to call the back half. But first, let's take a quick break.
• 43:44
  Pete Wright: The next reel is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Dimitrix Wonderland, Itay Argaman, Oriel Novella, and Eli Cattlin. Andy usually finds all the stats for the awards and numbers at d-numbers.com, boxofficemojo.com, imdb.com, and wikipedia.org. Find the show and the full archive at truestory.fm, and you can follow us from there too and learn about your membership. Check out our merch store at thenextreal.com/merch. And if your app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.
• 44:31
  How to do it award season, Andy?
• 44:35
  Andy Nelson: This got a lot of recognition. 54 wins with 101 other nominations. Very, very well favored in the award circles, largely because of three things, performances for by McCarthy and Grant and the screenplay. At the Oscars, it was in fact those three that had got nominations for Melissa McCarthy, was nominated for best actress, but last to Olivia Coleman in the favorite. Richard E.
• 45:01
  Grant was nominated for best supporting actor, but lost to Mahershala Ali in Green Book, which should have been category fraud because Mahershala Ali was lead actor in that film.
• 45:11
  Pete Wright: And also the film sucked.
• 45:12
  Andy Nelson: And also there's that. So and best adapted screenplay lost to BlacKkKlansman. I can't argue that one.
• 45:19
  Pete Wright: No. For sure.
• 45:19
  Andy Nelson: At the Casting Society of America, the Ardios Awards, it was nominated for outstanding achievement in casting for a studio or independent feature drama, but lost to BlacKkKlansman. At the Golden Globes, Melissa McCarthy was nominated for best actress, but lost to Glenn Close in the wife. And again, Richard e. Grant lost best supporting actor to Mahershala Ali. Then at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, it, Grant won best supporting actor, and it did win for best adapted screenplay.
• 45:45
  Last but not least, I thought this was interesting, the Razzies, which, you know, we Wow. Had a whole series on, the Razzies for one year. Melissa McCarthy was nominated for what they call the Redeemer Award. The Redeemer Award is presented to a former nominee or winner who has subsequently made a comeback from critical or commercial failure. I wonder if if she's fallen into a place where she ended up getting other Razzies and could still then be eligible for yet another redeemer now.
• 46:15
  Who knows?
• 46:15
  Pete Wright: The Razzie Yo Yo Award for somebody who
• 46:18
  Andy Nelson: gets a redeemer three times. Right. But she did win this, beating out this is an interesting list. Peter Farrelli for Green Book, Tyler Perry for Vice, the transformers franchise for Bumblebee, and the Spider Man into the Spider Verse for Sony Pictures animation. I love how flexible they are with their
• 46:38
  Pete Wright: Yeah. With their nominees. Melissa McCarthy versus the Transformers franchise. That's awesome. Yeah.
• 46:49
  Yeah. That that may be the best Razzie. Like, there are a lot of Razzies. I don't care for it, but that one is really, really great. It is.
• 46:56
  I do enjoy that. Alright, Andy. I I wish more more had won from this movie. I I really do.
• 47:03
  Andy Nelson: Well, it's still it's still pretty good. Yeah.
• 47:05
  Pete Wright: What what really matters is how much did it make? How to do it the box office.
• 47:16
  Andy Nelson: For Heller's bio crime drama, she had a budget of 10,000,000 or 12,600,000.0 in today's dollars. The movie debuted at Telluride 09/01/2018, then opened limited 10/19/2018 opposite Halloween and mid nineties. This would expand to 441 screens, but never got higher than twelfth place at the box office, even after its Oscar nomads. Still, it maintained the course and went on to earn 8,800,000.0 domestically and 3,700,000.0 internationally for a total gross of 15,800,000.0 in today's dollars. With that, they scraped by, landing in the green with an adjusted profit per finished minute of $29,000.
• 47:53
  Pete Wright: Well, I'm see, I'm really glad, because this is one of those movies that you could've you would not have surprised me had you told me it was an adjusted loss. No. Right.
• 48:03
  Andy Nelson: It's independent enough, and it's the story type that you just it's kind of an up in the air as far as if it's gonna make money or not. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. For sure.
• 48:14
  Pete Wright: Yeah. I'm really, really glad we talked about this movie. And I'm I think it makes it's a really nice start to the True Lies series for me because, you know, of all of these, I think they're Lee Israel, as a human being, might be the only one who used her skill, her craft, and and these lies to to tell some semblance of truth. And I appreciate that. And I think this movie is just quietly devastating looking at what this path does to somebody who has so much hard armor up around them.
• 48:50
  Yeah. And, you know, I wish I wish we'd gotten more of a redeemed Lee Israel for more of her life.
• 48:58
  Andy Nelson: The fact that she's drinking in a bar when she meets Richard or when she meets Jack that last time, when she's supposed to be at an AA meeting, that pretty much told you how much redemption we're gonna actually get with her. Not much. No. Yeah. I I enjoy the film.
• 49:15
  I think it's interesting. My I guess what I take out of it the most is just I love moments like this when you get a comedian like Melissa McCarthy, who can show people that they're so much more than just a funny person. And as much as I love Life of the Party and Spy and many of her performances, it's nice to see that they have these chances out there to kind of prove how great they can be in these dramatic performances.
• 49:43
  Pete Wright: A 100%.
• 49:45
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. Alright. Well, that is it for our conversation about can you ever forgive me? Next week, we are continuing our true lies series with Billy Ray's film about the scandal surrounding journalist Stephen Glass and the fabricated stories he created. That's right.
• 49:58
  It's time for Shattered Glass. And now let's do
• 50:01
  Pete Wright: our ratings. Letterbox.com. Letterbox.com/thenextreal. That's where you can find our HQ page where you can see all the ratings and reviews of the movies that we've talked about across The Next Real family of film shows. Andy, what are you gonna do for this movie?
• 50:16
  Has it changed at all from your first watch?
• 50:19
  Andy Nelson: It hasn't. It hasn't. It's an interesting film. I mean, I gave it three and a half the first time. Yeah.
• 50:24
  So it's not like It's good. It's not like I'm hating on it. I think it's fine. It's just it's a hard protagonist to really connect with, and I like the performances. I think they're great.
• 50:34
  I I think in the end, it's an interesting biographical story that I think works as a film, but it's nothing exciting as a film. That's where I kind of land with that three and a half, and also give it a heart.
• 50:46
  Pete Wright: Okay. Well, I'm I'm actually I I think you and I are closer than maybe my enthusiasm on the show would indicate. There there are some moments of exposition toward the end of the movie that I I do feel like are they just feel transcribed more than lived. And because the this is not a character that I'm going to aspire to be like. Right?
• 51:11
  It's not somebody who's changed my life for the better. I haven't learned any lessons about my own life through the experience of watching this movie that are gonna cause me to change my life. It's not a five star movie, but it is a four star movie. It's a healthy foreign art. I really enjoy this movie, and I recommend it.
• 51:27
  I think it's worth watching. For those who are interested in watching characters with this sort of hard edge try to make their way in a very complicated economy and, particularly in the arts. And Melissa McCarthy does a fantastic job of it. Agreed. Agreed.
• 51:49
  Well, that averages out to 3.75, which rounds up
• 51:52
  Andy Nelson: to four and a heart. You can find the show on Letterbox at the next reel. You can find me there at Soda Creek Film, and you can find Pete there at Pete Wright. So what did you think about Can You Ever Forgive Me? We would love to hear your thoughts.
• 52:04
  Hop into the Show Talk channel over in our Discord community, where we will be talking about the movie this week.
• 52:09
  Pete Wright: When the movie ends, our conversation begins.
• 52:28
  Andy Nelson: Letterbox give it, Andrew. As Letterboxd always do it.
• 52:32
  Pete Wright: Alright. I I'm gonna go first because mine's longer and yours is adorable. Is that okay? Okay with that?
• 52:38
  Andy Nelson: That's great.
• 52:39
  Pete Wright: I've got a four and a half star in a heart from number one Gizmo fan who I think says what really I should have said and just turned off the mic. Melissa McCarthy and Richard e Grant give two of the best performances of the year and will go completely unrecognized, and that, my friends, is a greater crime than forgery. Amen.
• 53:00
  Andy Nelson: Except it's not true. They were they were recognized a lot for their performances. So I would say wrong.
• 53:08
  Pete Wright: Well, this was before the award season came out.
• 53:12
  Andy Nelson: No. It's like they watched it January 2019. So award season was already underway.
• 53:17
  Pete Wright: No. That's a good point. It was already underway. Yeah. Foolish.
• 53:21
  Andy Nelson: I just think I regret I
• 53:22
  Pete Wright: regret even saying it out loud. That's right. Still, it feels my truth.
• 53:26
  Andy Nelson: It feels your there you go. There you go. Well, I, before I read mine, I just want to because it's gonna be important. What was her cat's name in the movie? Jersey.
• 53:37
  Jersey. Alright. I have a three star by Izzy who says, do you think she called the kitten New Jersey?
• 53:45
  Pete Wright: That's really good. It's really good. I think she did. Oh. Oh, wow.
• 53:52
  Thanks, Letterboxd.