In "Can you ever forgive me ?" an ageing writer, known for her biographies, discovers she's fallen out of favour with editors, critics and public. In despair, she begins stealing, embellishing or forging letters from dead celebrities such as Noel Coward or Dorothy Parker. After a while she's typing and selling letters at an industrial speed. A male accomplice helps her rake in the money...
"Can you ever forgive me ?" is a pleasant mix of drama and tragicomedy, notable mainly for the excellent performances by its two protagonists. There's also an outstanding evocation of a specific environment which will be alien to quite a lot of viewers.
The movie, which is based on a real-life case, raises a lot of moral and intellectual discussion points about the dangers of forgery : are we talking about a jolly jape and/or a (mostly) victimless crime ? Or are we talking about something far darker ? Me, I tend to take a very dim view of forgers. To me, they're enemies of truth and reality undermining our collective human memory. And I have not yet encountered a forger who didn't consider himself a shining demi-god among the sheeple...
From this perspective, the movie would make a good double bill with "Der gefälschte Mond von Galileo Galilei", an ARTE documentary. (I'm not entirely sure the documentary exists in an English translation, but it's a reasonable assumption.) "Mond" tells the real-life story of a forger having a go at Galilei's great discoveries - and believe me, it's a truly shocking story about people destroying national treasures, ransacking centuries-old libraries or thumbing their noses at superb scientific accomplishments.
"Can you ever forgive me ?" is a pleasant mix of drama and tragicomedy, notable mainly for the excellent performances by its two protagonists. There's also an outstanding evocation of a specific environment which will be alien to quite a lot of viewers.
The movie, which is based on a real-life case, raises a lot of moral and intellectual discussion points about the dangers of forgery : are we talking about a jolly jape and/or a (mostly) victimless crime ? Or are we talking about something far darker ? Me, I tend to take a very dim view of forgers. To me, they're enemies of truth and reality undermining our collective human memory. And I have not yet encountered a forger who didn't consider himself a shining demi-god among the sheeple...
From this perspective, the movie would make a good double bill with "Der gefälschte Mond von Galileo Galilei", an ARTE documentary. (I'm not entirely sure the documentary exists in an English translation, but it's a reasonable assumption.) "Mond" tells the real-life story of a forger having a go at Galilei's great discoveries - and believe me, it's a truly shocking story about people destroying national treasures, ransacking centuries-old libraries or thumbing their noses at superb scientific accomplishments.