Further Thoughts on Can You Ever Forgive Me?

There are lots of reasons to like Can You Ever Forgive Me? – its well-crafted script, its tight direction, its splendid performances, its complex characters, its interesting subject matter…  The list goes on and on.  Today, though, there’s one thing in particular I want to look at:  its place as an LGBTQ film.

Both the central character (Lee Israel) and her closest friend (Jack Hock) are gay, a fact that’s woven into the film pretty naturally.  Although Lee is prickly and can be quite misanthropic, she’s still preoccupied with an ex who left over Lee’s aversion to commitment, and the film sees her becoming awfully taken with a rare book seller who serves as one of her marks.  (Also, not for nothing, she’s kind of casually butch, which I appreciate.)  With Lee especially, I’m grateful that they didn’t straightwash her.  There have been plenty of films based on true stories that conveniently leave out a real-life person’s sexuality, outright change it, or reduce it to something to be inferred between the lines.

Meanwhile, while Jack’s character does flirt with archetype, his position as an aging party boy places him in a somewhat uncertain place within the 1970s/80s New York gay scene.  Plus, “gay best friend to the female protagonist” is certainly a trope, but that dynamic is rarely seen when that female protagonist is gay too, so Lee and Jack’s relationship stands out from what we more typically see in movies/on TV.

Another quick note on the Lee-Jack relationship.  They remind me a little of Hannah and Elijah from Girls in that, even though Lee is definitely the lead and Jack is a supporting character, the film never gives off an air that Jack only exists to serve Lee’s storyline.  Like Elijah, Jack is most likely the star in own mind, and while Lee’s story is what drives the plot, there are enough hints that Jack is getting up to plenty of things on his own.  (Not to mention, Hannah, Elijah, Lee, and Jack are all kind of terrible people, and yet, their friendships work so well together.)

What I love most of all, though, is that, from a storytelling perspective, the only “reason” Lee and Jack (again, especially Lee) are gay is that they were in real life.  In other words, it’s a gay move but not a Gay Movie.  It’s not about coming out or homophobia or AIDS or an engaged woman’s textbook-life getting disrupted by the realization that she might be a lesbian – it’s just about this woman, the fascinating con she pulled, and the friend who was in on her secret. 

I know I’m not the only person who’s lamented the fact that LGBTQ-themed cinema can sometimes feel boxed into very specific narratives.  In fact, I think the next big leap forward will be seeing protagonists in a variety of stories and genres who “just happen to be LGBTQ” – LGBTQ characters as detectives solving murders, as teens trying to escape horror-movie monsters, as aspiring business owners with big dreams, as travelers finding themselves on vacation in foreign countries, as unlikely superheroes discovering their power.  I want all that and more for LGBTQ characters, and I think this movie fits into that idea nicely.