Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)

This is a "stranger than fiction" story about biographer Lee Israel and how she made her living when her books stopped garnering interest.

I fully enjoyed this character as brought to life by Melissa McCarthy, whom I usually find to be a little too eager-to-please, often slipping into mugging for the camera. Here, though, she's restrained and prickly. I admired her refusal to play the game. I also admired her moxie, even when applied to penning fake celebrity letters. I was rooting for her as she grudgingly let a friend into both her life and her gross apartment.

I'm not sure how this would've played had I been familiar with the story, but it worked well for a viewer for whom this was all brand new.

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