The trailers for the movie Can You Ever Forgive Me looked more lighthearted than it was. It was not funny, although it was a well-done movie.
Melissa McCarthy as Lee Israel: Her penchant for Scotch
The movie, drawn from a real-life story about a writer, Lee Israel, was deeply affecting. Sadness and lostness pervaded all the characters. However, they especially defined Lee Israel whose willfulness depleted her writing talent, and whose selfishness wrecked relationships.
It’s not like she had no choice.
Her agent told, her friends told her, how to get out of dark place she inhabited; she would not. On her own, which was the way she liked her life, she did not. No, she chose to become good at forgeries, theft, and drinking.
Caustic wit, she said, was her religion. And Lee Israel – or the screenwriters – wielded that weapon well. Sadly, Can you ever forgive me was not a heartfelt question but her cynical dodge of owning up to what she masterminded. ( The True Story of Lees Israel)
Whew! Why spend time on seeing another woman’s downward spiral into alienation, disaster, and despondency?
One, I wanted to know how a writer who actually made the NYT’s bestseller list could . . . stoop so low.
A little talent, a lot of self-absorption, and a penchant for scotch made her wrong choices seem right – especially deadly was the confidence that she was actually wittier that the likes of Noël Coward and Dorothy Parker. And with practice, she sold others on the same opinion.
But the real reason I kept watching was personal.
Something in how Lee Israel made one bad choice after another reminded me of my own bullheadedness. For all our differences, I saw a couple of similarities.
From the very opening of Can You Ever Forgive Me, I saw through Lee Israel’s bull-headed zeal how little choices I felt were right got me to wrong places.
The deliverance, the forgiveness that God offered me has been real indeed! Lee Israel’s comment on her writing and life reverberated: I was supposed to be something more than this.
Lee Israel echoed every woman’s heart cry since Eve! The good news Lee never got is, beauty really can come from ashes! (Isaiah 61:3)
Oh Dear reader — How I hope His paths are our choice today! Choose LIFE!
Every day, as long as we have a pulse, we make choices about how we live – many insensible to the cost. Choices matter; even the ones we think nobody sees, and especially the ones we think we can get away with.
Hollywood may not buy the rights to such everyday stories; but true stories are good teachers. Can you imagine a movie about the man who found bundles of cash in a second-hand sofa, and didn’t rest until he returned it ? (Link to Article)
You do not wake up one morning a bad person. It happens by a thousand tiny surrenders of self-respect to self-interest. ~Robert Brault
How we handle daily opportunities or disappointments is still a blessed choice, even in this autumn’s garden season; especially in this season! (Integrity Test by Andre Seu Peterson )
Being willing to change is always a daily option even if we are really, really sure we know best.
It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. ~Noël Coward, Blithe Spirit: An Improbable Farce in Three Acts, 1941
Why I Kept Watching Can You Forgive Me