Melissa McCarthy is magnificent as an odious literary forger abetted by Richard E Grant as her lounge-lizard drinking buddy
The law about movie characters needing to be sympathetic is defied in this horribly fascinating true-crime black comedy about failed biographer and serial literary forger Lee Israel, co-written by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty, and directed by Marielle Heller. In the leading role, Melissa McCarthy has absolutely zero relatability. No one is rooting for her at any time. As they ponder the manky apartment in which she lives, with cat excrement piling up under the bed, audiences will not want to be her, or be with her.
Her character’s passionate devotion to her cat is matched by an irritable contempt for the human beings who have variously let her down, or got too close, or impeded her literary career. And her final courtroom promise to give up alcohol is succeeded by a scene in which she gets drunk in a bar and gigglingly fantasises about how funny it would be to trip up a fragile cancer patient. But there is pathos in the way her porcine grimace of scorn finally wobbles into tears of sadness. It is a brilliant performance from McCarthy, and Richard E Grant gives us something bleakly hilarious as her lounge-lizard drinking buddy and co-dependent loser Jack Hock.
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