Lee Israel was selfish, cold, sad, and disreputable. She was also really fun to know. Sookie nails this one.

Mad props to Melissa McCarthy for turning it around with this after _Happytime Murders_ and _Life of the Party_. Actually after basically every single thing I've seen her in up until this point. I honestly can't think of a single role I've liked her in. Until Lee Israel of course, because as her, in this, McCarthy is great. Respect for Richard E. Grant in the supporting role as well. It took me a little while…

**_Unexpectedly emotional, with a towering central performance_** > _I had never known anything but up in my career, had never received even one of those formatted no-thank-you slips that successful writers look back upon with triumphant jocularity. And I regarded with pity and disdain the short-sleeved wage slaves who worked in offices. I had no reason to believe life would get anything but better. I had had no…

Melissa McCarthy is outstanding in this retrospective dealing with the more "creative" aspects of the later career of acclaimed author Lee Israel. She genuinely elicits sympathy for the emptiness in, and sadness of, her life that led her to create a string of forgeries that led the literary world on a merry dance for years. Richard E. Grant totally deserved his Oscar nomination as her mischievous abettor and this…