In Can You Ever Forgive Me? Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant create the perfect criminal twosome. She creates literary forgeries and he inspires her and peddles them when the feds get wise to her.
When the gaze is on them Can You Ever Forgive Me? shines with their repartee and their earthy friendship that borders on disgust, trust and a recognition of their closeted identities. This is a case of two underrated actors finding the perfect mirror that reflects their talent.
McCarthy’s and Grant’s synchronicity has created the best acted film of the year. McCarthy plays her self-loathing character down and Grant plays his flamboyantly self-hating character up creating a film with a perfect balance and center of gravity.
McCarthy’s performance wisely parallels Can You Ever Forgive Me? outer plot and greater theme: that the best literary epistle forgeries can be better than even the originals as longs as they remain short, sweet and uniquely bound to that struggle between authorial reverence and personal audacity.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? is easy to forgive. It burst with hidden talent coming alight.
Watch Melissa McCarthy talk about creating her performance:
Video courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures
Leave a Reply