你能原谅我吗？ Can You Ever Forgive Me?7.2

影迷热评

• 来自网友【Z。 蓮】的评论偶然在电脑上看的电影，原本看名字以为是爱情片，夕阳无限好那种，看到一半胸闷的我抽了一根很久都没碰过的烟。同样是伪造，为什么猫鼠游戏就没那种感觉呢？看完闷着回味了三个小时，想不明白心情低落的原因，突然看到了CELIN 2021的大秀我突然想明白了一些事。千禧时代的我还正青春活力呢，可是每天关注着豆瓣离婚帖子，避孕帖子，养老帖子，买房帖子，看着30岁女人分享自己的年龄焦虑，研究着产后恢复的瑜伽到底是怎样练习，爱好如同大爷一样养花看书听歌晒太阳。不爱出门，不善于交际，拒绝交际。我生怕会像女主一样被时代的洪流所抛弃。即使现在我也感觉有点脱离尘世：从不看微博，不玩小红书，不化妆，不看抖音。关注的话题都是比我还要大个几十岁的人才会讨论的事情，政治热点啊，资本运作啊……我好像精神世界已经很老了。CELIN的设计师Hedi在上世纪风风火火的引领了潮流，如今却要追随潮流。虽然我不知道他风格改变的真正原因，我也不好去揣测，但是这种焦虑情绪从电影刚开始就渗透到我的骨头里。就更别提我看的书和电影都那么的老派……唉。我真的是把老骨头，而且我厌烦社交的性格已经让我离世界越来越远了。这电影看起来只是讲了个故事，可是这故事也太心酸了。曾经大连最风光的琳琳舞厅，当时听着最潮的歌曲的大爷们可能谁都没想到它在几十年后会被电子舞曲和民谣吧取代，如今的蹦迪酒吧KTV可能在十几年后就灰飞烟灭了，可能只有大澡堂洗才是一直活下来的经典。最近疫情之下书店危机爆发，唱片店早已经濒危和古董古着混搭，我追随的潮流原来已经是过时的节奏，又没有资本坚持自己的爱好，也没资格不去社交就能活着。那除了荒唐的伪造八卦文书，她还有什么活路。我还有什么活路。真希望千禧时代能够一直坚持着，年轻着，活跃着。不要被柴米油盐所束缚。让我老的慢一点。
• 来自网友【他他】的评论A pet project for Nicole Holofcener for years (who was set to direct it with Julianne Moore and Chris O’Dowd heading the cast), the final fruition of a biopic about New York biographer-turned-literature-forger Lee Israel (1939-2014) shifts its director chair to her fellow female director Marielle Heller, CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? becomes the follow-up of her Sundance darling debut feature THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL (2015), with Holofcener and Jeff Whitty taking the writing credits, Melissa McCarthy starring as Israel and Richard E. Grant as her partner-in-crime Jack Hock (all received their Oscar nominations except Heller).Scarcely there is anything exciting in Israel’s criminal peccadillo (apart from a tense letter-purloining episode inside the library of Yale University), who forges letters written by deceased celebrities (from Fanny Brice, Noël Coward to Dolly Parker, and the key is to fake their signatures, that’s when an Xerox machine comes quite handy if you have a pair of deft, steady hands), often inputting her own wits into the contents to raise the appeal, then sells them to antique bookshop owners to earn fast cash, yet, it is a fiendishly ingenious idea, because as long as these memorabilia can attract potential collectors, most of these buyers don’t give a toss about its authenticity, but there is also a catch, sometimes, it is difficult to fool a connoisseur who pays handsomely for their collection, also, you cannot sell too many items without rousing suspicion (that “avuncular” slip-up is really embarrassing). From the start, in the early 1990s, 51-year-old Lee is dead strapped, fired from her wage labor, once a New York best seller, her upcoming biography about Fanny Brice cannot secure an advance, living alone in her cluttered apartment with a long-in-the-tooth cat, her misery should arouse sympathy but any commiseration dissipates vanishingly whenever she talks. A curmudgeon who unabashedly professes that she likes cats far more than her own kind (and later duly proves that with her action), and apparently has no family or friends, Lee belongs to that rarified group of movie protagonists who is not equipped with any modicum of charisma, but that doesn’t make her less human, conversely, among others, McCarthy’s vastly lived-in performance makes every aspect of her humanity coruscate and bubbling with intensity and veracity, we might not want to meet a character like her, but nonetheless, she is there, indomitably represents the unglamorous, unsympathetic side of ordinary beings which narrative cinema often intends to overlook. The friendship between Lee and Jack, gels naturally from their common propensity of libations. But sex is definitely off the table because of their similar queer orientations, Jack, a small-time drug dealer who seems to sleep rough without a permanent residence, much balances off Lee’s cynical nature with his unapologetic flamboyance, and Grant has a whale of a time in inhabiting his idiotic, happy-go-lucky persona to the hilt, even in the final reveal of his impending fate, Jack is Jack, nothing sentimental or phony is doctored into their tenuous, but unalloyed bond chiefly borne out of a mutual necessity, once that phrase passes, Holofcener and Whitty script makes sure nothing wishy-washy remains. Many a supporting female performance scintillates with their own strength, Dolly Wells as Anna, one of the bookshop owners, is extremely eloquent in conveying the trickiest part to elicit a tangible romantic feeling towards a dumpy Lee because she peers through her prickly carapace and intuits something tender underneath, but their romance is better not ignited (which Lee snuffs it roundly), as not everyone in real life is prone to act against one’s best judgement. Jane Curtin simply kills it as Lee’s pragmatic agent Marjorie, who does not mince words to pinpoint Lee’s problems with sharp asperity, and Anna Deavere Smith, appears only in one scene as Lee’s ex-lover Elaine, totally shatters our expectation of a comforting figure when Lee seeks out her help, instead, she rams home her mixed feeling of bitterness, weariness and insouciance that persuasively speaks volumes of why their relationship has fallen through. Carving out an engrossing narrative and teasing out compelling performances out of an assortment of un-cinematic elements, Heller’s CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? not just ushers in a new era of female filmmakers strenuously and felicitously tackling thorny issues like their male counterparts, but also brings a new form of character study to the mainstream audience, if we don’t want other people’s sympathy in real life, likewise, cinema needn’t desperately bank on compassion-inducing characters to make for a rewarding viewing experience, as this film beautifully attests, for what it is worth, humanity is a many-faceted creature.referential entries: Björn Runge’s THE WIFE (2017, 7.0); Hirokazu Koreeda’s SHOPLIFTERS (2018, 8.4/10).