1991: Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy), a successful writer and author, has fallen on hard times. She has no job, her agent won't return her calls, she's months behind on rent, and her cat is sick. It is so bleak that she takes a framed letter from Katherine Hepburn from her wall and sells it. Later, while researching for a book she's planning, she encounters some letters that she pockets and sells. This proves lucrative so she decides to write some originals. When buyers start getting suspicious, she uses Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant) to sell her forgeries. Then the FBI arrive.
Billed as a biographical crime comedy, this had very little comedy. Melissa McCarthy, who can be enormously funny, has almost no material here. She is a sad alcoholic cat lady who has resorted to crime. Lee is an unlikeable character throughout the movie. Even when she tries to be funny, it is the sort of humor that is mean. For instance, a used book seller didn't want the majority of the books she brought to the shop so she phoned him a few days later and said his apartment building was on fire. What a sense of humor. The scene where she and Jack discover that the cat has been pooping under her bed - and she had gone weeks without noticing - was just pathetic. There is virtually no comedy and the main characters are terrible people. Jack is a homeless homosexual alcoholic and drug abuser. His only redeeming feature is he can be charming. Lee doesn't even have that.
This is the unfunny story of a criminal who got off lightly and then profited further by publishing a book of her exploits in 2008. Unable to sympathize with their hardships or laugh at their antics, this story offers nothing to enjoy. Skip it.
No comments:
Post a Comment