Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Marielle Heller, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells, Ben Falcone.
Splendidly insufferable; that’s the best way to describe the character portrayals by McCarthy and Grant.
Based on a true story about literary forgery, the film holds your interest. As Lee Israel, McCarthy (Mike & Molly, Spy, St. Vincent, The Heat) is impressive in the fascinating account of a destitute writer who opts to falsehoods, deception and outright law-breaking practices to get back to the top.
Israel is a thwarted author who regularly hits the bottle. Living in New York, she can scarcely afford to pay her rent or bills. Desperate for money, Israel soon hatches a scheme to forge letters by famous writers and sell them to bookstores and collectors. When the dealers start to catch on, Lee recruits a dubious friend to help her continue her self-destructive cycle of trickery and deceit.
As the best-selling celebrity biographer (and cat lover), Israel made her living in the 1970s and 80s profiling the likes of Estée Lauder, Katharine Hepburn, Tallulah Bankhead and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen. She even sells a letter by US comedienne Fanny Brice to get some cash. Observe her pretence at being Nora Ephron.
After Lee found herself unable to ‘get published because she had fallen out of step with the marketplace, she turned her art form to deception, abetted’ by her loyal friend Jack Hock (Grant, Hudson Hawke, Gosford Park).
This is a touching film about human inadequacies. Jock is Lee’s salvation … though her loneliness is palpable.
