Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Lee Israel was once a respected biographer whose books sold well, but her career has stalled and her tastes no longer match what publishers want. Short of money and unable to pay her rent or care for her sick cat, she notices that collectors pay handsomely for letters written by famous people. She begins forging correspondence in the voices of deceased writers and celebrities, and the scheme brings in enough money to keep her afloat. Her friend Jack Hock joins in, selling the fabricated letters to dealers and collectors around New York. The pair are socially awkward and difficult people who nonetheless become partners in the enterprise, one producing the forgeries and the other moving them. As the fakes draw attention, Lee also takes genuine letters from archives and sells those, and the deception begins to unravel around her.

Marielle Heller directed the film, her second feature after The Diary of a Teenage Girl, from a screenplay by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty. Melissa McCarthy plays Lee Israel and Richard E. Grant plays Jack Hock, with Dolly Wells, Ben Falcone, Gregory Korostishevsky and Jane Curtin in supporting roles. The production had a credited cast of 60 and a credited crew of 108, and it took about 9 million dollars worldwide.

Critical response was strong: critics rated it 8.2/10 across 320 reviews, while audiences were more reserved, giving it 7.1/10 on IMDb from over 55,000 votes and 6.8/10 on TMDB. Those figures point to a film that reviewers admired more than general viewers did.