SHOWS ADDED: Nov 16-17-18
Lee Israel's pleasant biographies about celebrities aren't selling, and she still has bills to pay. Fortunately, she happens across a couple letters by Fanny Brice. She manages to sell one for $75. The buyer explains the price tag would be heftier if the letter weren't so dull, and Lee, a quick learner, adds a PS to the other one. With money for her apartment and sick cat in her pocket, she decides to write some letters from scratch. Soon, she's raking in hundreds upon hundreds of dollars, and the FBI has some questions. Lee isn't going down for trying to make a living, though, so she enlists the help of her kind-of friend and definite gadfly Jack.
In part a low-risk crime caper, in part a buddy comedy, part love letter to a curmudgeon, Can You Ever Forgive Me? is impressing critics and cementing Melissa McCarthy as a critical darling.