Strongly acted but lacking in wit.
Just watch Spy again – you don’t have to feel guilty about it.
Did you ever spend time drinking in dive-y gay bars with shady characters? I have, kind of a lot. It’s sort of fun. More fun than Can You Ever Forgive Me? would have you believe.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a good movie, but it plods through its paces with a monotony that keeps it from rising above a certain level. Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant are great. They’re pretty much always great. Well, at least he is. But they’re both bona fide scene stealing stars with proven track records. Maybe people are surprised that she can actually act, but they shouldn’t be.
There’s no shortage of empathy in Can You Ever Forgive Me? for the oddball losers they’re playing, which is nice, but I wonder whether the real people involved in the story would have appreciated the pity the film encourages. I don’t think they would. I think maybe they’d tell Academy Award nominated screenwriter Nicole Holofcener to go fuck herself, and gigglesnort until they fell off their bar stools.
in the dark 