"Can You Ever Forgive Me?" shines so brightly in part because it's a Nicole Holofcener movie. It has Holofcener in its DNA. (She co-wrote the script).
Holofcener has made her name by noticing things no one else notices. (She's like Jerry Seinfeld, who recently struck comic gold by musing aloud about a raisin.)
Tiny, indelible moments are sprinkled through Holofcener's scripts. A man stands before a wall of multicolored towels at Bed, Bath, and Beyond; he is overwhelmed, engulfed, by the options, and we suddenly feel as if we're on an alien planet. (Later, the same man expresses wonder at the concept of a "toothbrush holder": What a bizarre world we live in!)
Famously, in "Please Give," Catherine Keener feels overpowering guilt when she sees a slovenly man near a fancy restaurant. "Please, please take my leftovers," she says, and her neediness is palpable. It's as if she wants to go through the Stations of the Cross on a Manhattan sidewalk. The man's inevitable response: "I'm not begging. I'm waiting for a table."
Or, in "Enough Said": A rift is exposed in James Gandolfini's new relationship when his girlfriend criticizes the amount of guacamole he scoops up with each chip. This same girlfriend wants very much to ape the pretentious poet she has just befriended, so she finds herself greeting strangers with one word: "Blessings!!!!"
You get this same kind of granular detail in "Can You Ever." If a character is weird enough, then even a brief trip to a boring party can become an adventure. In its opening moments, "Can You Ever" shows us Lee Israel hounding her agent. "Did you come here, to my party, just so you could pigeon-hole me, regarding this Fanny Brice book?" asks the agent. And Lee, unaware of the idea of social niceties, says, "Yes."
Staring at a bathroom closet, Lee becomes fascinated by the fact that there are no complete toilet-paper rolls. Each has been diminished. She is a writer; she is curious; she can't help but accost her hostess about the mystery of the toilet-paper rolls. The insane hostess says, "That's so our guests always have a *full* roll." And Lee, with her endearing fidelity to the truth, further defines her own character with her response: "That's batshit crazy."
Elsewhere, a blowhard assaults his acquaintances with a speech about writers' block. "It's just a myth. It's not a real thing. It's an excuse writers have so that they do not Do the Work. Why am I successful? Because I do the work. I do not pamper myself, or make up lies." One wonders if anyone has really asked this white male jackass why he is successful. (Or whether his definition of "success" is universal.) Lee scores more points by muttering, "Asshole," and then walking away.
This interlude ends the only way it can, with Lee sitting alone on the couch, back home, next to her cat. She is watching a famous movie--"The Little Foxes," by Lillian Hellman. I love this image for several reasons. One: Hellman was the goddess of the well-built play. She knew her away around a sentence, and a put-down. So it's fitting that Lee would idolize her, and would actually have memorized her every word. Two: This is what antisocial writers do. They stay home with TCM. (I'm reminded of Augusten Burroughs, who likes to spend his downtime in solitude, with various Barbara Stanwyck films. Sondheim has also stated his fondness for the well-made and witty scripts of the black-and-white era.) Three: The dead writer who will spell out Lee's downfall, at the movie's climax, is Lillian Hellman. So the seed is planted here--quietly--in the first few minutes of the script. Our ends are present in our beginnings. Masterful.
Nicole Holofcener is an old pro, and she shows the same kind of grace and confidence through the rising action and the ending. We get fabulous details: The NYTimes calling Israel's memoir "sordid and pretty damn wonderful." Israel's gay druggy friend slipping the cat the wrong pills. Israel trying--and failing--to offer a short-story critique for a possible love interest. Israel playing a prank-call game with the weirdly bitchy proprietor of "Crosby Street Books." All of this feels just outside the realm of conventional scriptwriting; it's fresh and spiky; it suggests to us that we're dealing with a writer who has an actual "voice."
That kind of thing doesn't happen very often. It's a gift. Go out and see this movie--if you haven't already!
Holofcener has made her name by noticing things no one else notices. (She's like Jerry Seinfeld, who recently struck comic gold by musing aloud about a raisin.)
Tiny, indelible moments are sprinkled through Holofcener's scripts. A man stands before a wall of multicolored towels at Bed, Bath, and Beyond; he is overwhelmed, engulfed, by the options, and we suddenly feel as if we're on an alien planet. (Later, the same man expresses wonder at the concept of a "toothbrush holder": What a bizarre world we live in!)
Famously, in "Please Give," Catherine Keener feels overpowering guilt when she sees a slovenly man near a fancy restaurant. "Please, please take my leftovers," she says, and her neediness is palpable. It's as if she wants to go through the Stations of the Cross on a Manhattan sidewalk. The man's inevitable response: "I'm not begging. I'm waiting for a table."
Or, in "Enough Said": A rift is exposed in James Gandolfini's new relationship when his girlfriend criticizes the amount of guacamole he scoops up with each chip. This same girlfriend wants very much to ape the pretentious poet she has just befriended, so she finds herself greeting strangers with one word: "Blessings!!!!"
You get this same kind of granular detail in "Can You Ever." If a character is weird enough, then even a brief trip to a boring party can become an adventure. In its opening moments, "Can You Ever" shows us Lee Israel hounding her agent. "Did you come here, to my party, just so you could pigeon-hole me, regarding this Fanny Brice book?" asks the agent. And Lee, unaware of the idea of social niceties, says, "Yes."
Staring at a bathroom closet, Lee becomes fascinated by the fact that there are no complete toilet-paper rolls. Each has been diminished. She is a writer; she is curious; she can't help but accost her hostess about the mystery of the toilet-paper rolls. The insane hostess says, "That's so our guests always have a *full* roll." And Lee, with her endearing fidelity to the truth, further defines her own character with her response: "That's batshit crazy."
Elsewhere, a blowhard assaults his acquaintances with a speech about writers' block. "It's just a myth. It's not a real thing. It's an excuse writers have so that they do not Do the Work. Why am I successful? Because I do the work. I do not pamper myself, or make up lies." One wonders if anyone has really asked this white male jackass why he is successful. (Or whether his definition of "success" is universal.) Lee scores more points by muttering, "Asshole," and then walking away.
This interlude ends the only way it can, with Lee sitting alone on the couch, back home, next to her cat. She is watching a famous movie--"The Little Foxes," by Lillian Hellman. I love this image for several reasons. One: Hellman was the goddess of the well-built play. She knew her away around a sentence, and a put-down. So it's fitting that Lee would idolize her, and would actually have memorized her every word. Two: This is what antisocial writers do. They stay home with TCM. (I'm reminded of Augusten Burroughs, who likes to spend his downtime in solitude, with various Barbara Stanwyck films. Sondheim has also stated his fondness for the well-made and witty scripts of the black-and-white era.) Three: The dead writer who will spell out Lee's downfall, at the movie's climax, is Lillian Hellman. So the seed is planted here--quietly--in the first few minutes of the script. Our ends are present in our beginnings. Masterful.
Nicole Holofcener is an old pro, and she shows the same kind of grace and confidence through the rising action and the ending. We get fabulous details: The NYTimes calling Israel's memoir "sordid and pretty damn wonderful." Israel's gay druggy friend slipping the cat the wrong pills. Israel trying--and failing--to offer a short-story critique for a possible love interest. Israel playing a prank-call game with the weirdly bitchy proprietor of "Crosby Street Books." All of this feels just outside the realm of conventional scriptwriting; it's fresh and spiky; it suggests to us that we're dealing with a writer who has an actual "voice."
That kind of thing doesn't happen very often. It's a gift. Go out and see this movie--if you haven't already!
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