Wait...that was Melissa McCarthy?
Disappearing into a role nobody could have expected or prepared for, McCarthy earns her place among the stars in her turn as Lee Israel. A writer who can't quite make her ends meet, a woman who can't connect with anyone in a meaningful way, and a person who seems to hate herself as much as she loves herself, the character exists more than lives in an indifferent New York of the early '90s. Her story, we learn, is one that is marked not by authorial success but rather by a criminal enterprise: namely, forging and selling personal correspondence from deceased celebrities.
It's a ridiculous, impossible story -- true, of course, but hardly credible on screen -- and the character could have quickly become a caricature of an eccentric, overweight lesbian who lies to live. With McCarthy's transformation, though, comes some of the most nuanced performing we've seen on screen this year. Her every movement is measured, each look calculated. We see a woman constantly at war with herself, denying herself what she most wants and indulging the very things she (and we) knows she should abandon. Her sparkling wit occasionally outshines her pessimism and scathing banter with the limited people she interacts with. It's a quietly intense delivery that is easy to get lost in, or to miss entirely.
Sharing the screen with her is Richard E. Grant, whose flamboyant and seedy character of Jack Hock is apparently the only person Lee Israel might call a friend. Wry and wicked, Jack joins in her criminal spree -- not forsaking his other sins -- and the two embark on a tenuous relationship that mixes work with friendship and wealth. It'll prove a doomed combination, but it is NYC nearing the end of a millennium, and doom is already in the city's lifeblood. Grant's character is a magnificent creation, no less complex than McCarthy's if given less attention by the film, and together the two make a strong case for this to be the queer movie of the year.
Much like McCarthy's quiet intensity, the film operates like a surgical knife, shiny and clean at the outset before diving deep into the carnage of our inner lives. Director Marielle Heller masterfully controls the flow of information, keeping everything intimate and allowing her creation to play a game of cutthroat poker. Everyone's hands are close to their chests, and while we're left with performances for the ages, nothing is as understated as the messages of the movie. The movie will end but its ideas creep under your skin and into your heart. Guard yourself, and then reconsider the cost of forgiving such deeply moving cinema.
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