American drama based on the memoirs of author Lee Israel chronicling her criminal career in the forging of works purported to be written by celebrities. Now a disgraced writer and facing rejection from publishers after a failed biography on Estée Lauder, Lee (Melissa McCarthy) becomes desperate to find a way to make ends meet. When an opportunity arises in the form of a typed letter she stumbles across in a library, Lee takes the letter to an expert for evaluation only to discover a way of forging more papers under numerous famous literary names.

However, Lee's luck soon runs out when the FBI get wind of her fraudulence and set out to put a stop to her enterprise.