Melissa McCarthy

Need comic respite? I’m happy to report that two new dramedies featuring strong women are even better than you’ve heard.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?, starring national treasure Melissa McCarthy, is based on the memoir of real-life writer Lee Israel, who became a con artist to pay the vet bills (out in wide release on Oct. 19th). Unable to get anyone to care about the subject of her new biography, Fanny Brice, much less her dwindling finances, Israel turns to stealing letters of famous movie stars and writers, and soon begins penning fake ones herself. Classic movie lovers and bibliophiles will sympathize with her alienation from those who don’t spend their days reading Noël Coward and Dorothy Parker. (And you’ll enjoy a line about Louise Brooks, a nod to classic movie fans.)

Appreciators of one-liners will ask themselves why they haven’t bought Israel’s memoir yet: this woman could WRITE. There’s a reason she was successful at mimicking Parker and Coward. Brought to caustic life by Melissa McCarthy, Israel is sympathetic even at her darkest and lowest. Despite the depth of her despair and loneliness, she is relentlessly funny in the film. Israel and her similarly lost companion (and later conspirator), Jack Hock (Richard Grant), engage in so much snarky, on-point banter that you wish the two could have had an Algonquin Round Table of their own.

These two boozy companions are simply joyful company for anyone who doesn’t mind a bit of darkness in their humor. And McCarthy deserves the awards buzz she’s getting for a riveting performance.

McCarthy’s frequent director Paul Feig has a film of his own out this month. Feig, who has a George Cukor flair for creating great vehicles for female stars, is at it again. The only question is whether Blake Lively or Anna Kendrick gets a meatier, more complex part in A Simple Favor, a story that is tonally closer to the light cynicism of Young Adult (2011) or the campiness of Serial Mom (1994) than to the darkness of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2014), to which it’s being compared. I’m hearing references to Double Indemnity from classic movie fans due to the film’s humor. Beat the Devil (1953) is more like it. Though A Simple Favor is a bit more controlled than that messy Truman Capote delight, there’s a bit of Mrs. Gwendolen Chelm (Jennifer Jones) in both of these heroines.

Feig; the director of Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy, and Ghostbusters (the reboot); is so open about preferring female leads and so appreciative of their comedic skills that it’s unsurprising to see both stars so funny and magnetic in his film. Their profane banter is hilarious, and the casual cruelty, self-interest, and denial of these particular frenemies are a blast to watch. I won’t spoil the surprise of what becomes of Emily (Lively), whose disappearance spurs mommy blogger Stephanie (Kendrick) into amateur detective/life-stalker mode.

There are some seriously batty plot developments that seem more like old-school soap operas than big screen fare (again, like Beat the Devil). But anyone paying attention knows plausibility is not the point. Just sit back and enjoy this dark comedy fun. (And don’t miss the recent titles and commentary on Stephanie’s bizarrely eclectic blog.) Those of us who have been following Feig since his brilliant creation, Freaks and Geeks, will be glad to see his first female lead, Linda Cardellini, in a scene-chewing, funny bit part. Let’s hope the films to follow these two this fall are half as fun.