<em>Can You Ever Forgive Me?</em> and the True Nature of Being a Writer

Lee Israel is a phenomenal writer. This point is emphasized again and again throughout Can You Ever Forgive Me?, the 2018 film based on the memoir of the same title, which chronicles the late author’s ingenious forays into literary forgery. Commendation for Israel’s counterfeit letters—produced under the names of deceased celebrities such as Dorothy Parker and Noël Coward—pours from the lips of every unwitting book and antique dealer who reads them. These brokers, who buy the letters from a near-destitute Israel and sell them to well-heeled clients, heap praise on the prose she has crafted in the voices of others. The dealers call out the brilliance of specific sentences, or simply marvel at the “caustic wit” on display.

All these, who is up for a on Sunday—claims she’s “a better Dorothy Parker than Dorothy Parker!” And the audience, having already witnessed multiple characters affirm the excellence of her writing, finds itself in no position to argue otherwise. invests significant narrative energy into the idea that a pure talent for words is what truly makes someone a writer—only to completely subvert that notion in the finale.