Oscar often calls when funny ladies get serious on the big screen. This year, it might be Melissa McCarthy’s turn to be recognized for her dramatic change of pace in the truth-based “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” As Lee Israel, a Manhattan-based curmudgeonly author with a drinking problem whose style of celebrity biographies have gone out of fashion by the year 1991, McCarthy drops all pretense of adopting her usual bouncy and brassy comic persona.
Instead, she wallows in disappointment, bitterness and child-like prankish behavior. In order to raise much-needed cash to pay her bills, she stoops to forging letters from long-dead celebrities and selling them to gullible bookstore owners and collectors. I kept waiting for McCarthy to part the clouds that hang over her character and inject a bit of her sunny side. Instead, she is marvelously morose as she performs a committed overcast performance that pays off big time as the movie concludes.
Instead, she wallows in disappointment, bitterness and child-like prankish behavior. In order to raise much-needed cash to pay her bills, she stoops to forging letters from long-dead celebrities and selling them to gullible bookstore owners and collectors. I kept waiting for McCarthy to part the clouds that hang over her character and inject a bit of her sunny side. Instead, she is marvelously morose as she performs a committed overcast performance that pays off big time as the movie concludes.
- 10/16/2018
- by Susan Wloszczyna
- Gold Derby
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