Melissa McCarthy has officially pivoted to drama, and what a strong pivot it will be. The trailer for her movie Can You Ever Forgive Me? dropped Friday, revealing that — just as we suspected — Melissa McCarthy is a very good actress!
In the movie, McCarthy plays Lee Israel, a writer who took up forgery in order to make ends meet. Based on Israel's memoir of the same name, Can You Ever Forgive Me? chronicles Israel's slow descent into a life of literary crime. (The Goldfinch, which will soon also be a movie, tells a similar story.) Israel's biography of Estée Lauder catalyzed her criminal career. Upset that Israel planned to write an unauthorized biography, Lauder herself plotted to derail the book by writing her own competitive memoir. After the failure of the biography, Israel began forging letters.
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When the movie was first announced in 2015, Julianne Moore was announced to be playing Israel. Later, in 2016, Variety reported that McCarthy had taken on the role after Moore dropped out. Marielle Heller, who directed Diary of a Teenage Girl, helmed the project.
In the trailer, McCarthy is unrecognizable in a mouse brown wig and a pair of spectacles. She's more subdued than she's been in other roles — Lee Israel is no Susan Cooper, McCarthy's character from Spy. It's not unlikely the movie will receive Oscar attention. It comes out at the very beginning of Oscar season, and it's a biopic, a category the Academy happens to love. Plus, McCarthy's been nominated before, which boosts her chances. And listen, her Sean Spicer impression deserved an Oscar.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? arrives in theaters in October of 2018. Watch the full trailer, below.