This movie has the typical issues of a serious movie version of a book by and about an unlikable, real person. Melissa McCarthy gives a fine performance as Lee Israel, a writer on the slide, alcoholic, depressed, and broke, who eases into selling forged and stolen autographed letters from bygone celebrities. Like many a performance depicting a depressed character, she shows a low affect, which is often bleak and uninteresting, ameliorated by a foul mouth and her love for her pet cat -- if you're a cat lover, which I am not. Richard E. Grant has a more interesting role as the gay hustler who sponges off her, and ultimately becomes an accomplice in her schemes. Yet the essential stupidity of his character makes the movie turn into a small-scale tragedy about people for whom the audience can feel no real sympathy.
Given the subject and the characters, the performances and movie can be seen as a bit of a triumph, but in the end, I could not really care about anyone in the movie. The most interesting thing about it were the scenes shot in the venerable Argosy Book Store, where I have been a customer for half a century -- it looks like the first time in longer than that that the place was neatened, even minimally.
Given the subject and the characters, the performances and movie can be seen as a bit of a triumph, but in the end, I could not really care about anyone in the movie. The most interesting thing about it were the scenes shot in the venerable Argosy Book Store, where I have been a customer for half a century -- it looks like the first time in longer than that that the place was neatened, even minimally.