Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Marielle Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? has been out for quite a while now, but it’s still playing at the cheapie theater. Like Heller’s previous movie, the fantastic Diary of a Teenage Girl, this one’s a beige period piece that benefits from nuanced performances by comedic actors. (Last time it was Kristen Wiig; here it’s Melissa McCarthy. Her follow-up, out next fall, features Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers.) McCarthy got most of the attention for playing depressed alcoholic literary forger Lee Israel, but foppish Richard E. Grant, as her ne’er-do-well bar buddy, delivers the film’s best performance. (The film took years to assemble, and at one point Julianne Moore and Chris O’Dowd were set to play the leads.) Quite a bit of the movie takes place in Julius, New York’s oldest and most interesting gay bar, while the abundance of smart used bookstores left me longing for the mid-90s.