All the lonely people

Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a true story based on the 2008 memoir of Lee Israel, the writer who turned her hand to forging literary letters and who became, as she puts it, ‘a better Dorothy Parker than Dorothy Parker’. So it’s that story, but it also isn’t. That story is here but the real story, I would say, is about loneliness and alcoholism and two outsiders who, in a Midnight Cowboy sort of way, form a friendship at a desperate time. And it is rivetingly moving on this count, as are the performances from Melissa McCarthy (Oscar-nominated) and Richard E. Grant, also Oscar-nominated. (Great, although it does now look as if his work on Spice World will never be recognised. A pity, but there you are.)

Directed by Marielle Heller with a screenplay by Jeff Whitty and Nicole Holofcener, the film is set in New York in 1991 and opens with Lee (McCarthy) being fired as a legal proofreader for drinking on the job and telling her boss to ‘fuck off’.

This is so Lee, we will discover. She once had a New York Times bestseller (a Tallulah Bankhead biography) but her book on Estée Lauder has tanked and her agent won’t take her calls unless she pretends to be Nora Ephron. She can’t get an advance and has hit hard times. She owes rent on her fly-infested apartment. (I hope you have a strong stomach. The source of the flies, once found, is not pretty.) Her beloved cat is sick but she can’t afford the vet. She pushes everyone away from her. She turns up at her agent’s party and insults Tom Clancy (‘jackass!’) before stealing toilet paper, the guest soap and a coat.