“I Care A Lot” Netflix Movie Review by Josh Davis
March 3, 2021 10:49 am |
“It’s been fun” is the last line of dialog in “I Care a Lot,” a movie billed as both a mystery, thriller and a comedy.
It’s not a comedy – at least this reviewer can’t see how it is – and it’s hardly a “fun” movie either.
Rosamund Pike (“Gone Girl”) stars as Marla Grayson, a professional caretaker of elderly people who exploits them to make a profit. She has medical professionals in her pocket and a local judge convinced that she, like the title implies, cares a lot and always acts in the best interest of her wards.
She does not.
The movie doesn’t tease this premise, but quickly sets up Marla as the villain. In the opening scene, she proclaims she is “not a lamb – I am a fucking lioness,” as she struts through a courtroom and games the system, her uber-Karen haircut as razor sharp as her cruelty.
Not long after, Marla finds a “cherry” target in Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest, “The Birdcage, “Edward Scissorhands”), an older woman who owns a home and has a sizable nest egg, but no clear family to care for her.
Marla and her girlfriend (Eiza González, “Baby Driver”) get Jennifer sent to strict care facility called Berkshire Oak, and then they go through the photos, jewelry and financial records at Jennifer’s $1.5 million home. They sell her furniture at auction and put her house up for sale. It’s gross and deplorable, but there’s a catch.
Jennifer, it turns out, is the mother of a powerful mafia boss, Roman Lunyov (Peter Dinklage, “Game of Thrones”). Of course, he’s pissed and wants his mother back, but Marla is able to stay one step ahead of the situation because Jennifer lives under a fake identity and has no legal ties to her son, and because Marla is so expert at what she does. Marla also senses a big score, especially when she finds a cache of diamonds in Jennifer’s safety deposit box.
Pike is frightening and frighteningly good as Marla, a woman who abhors poverty and will do anything to make herself rich – including ruining the lives of dozens of helpless senior citizens.
Dinklage is also excellent here, often quite menacing, but also showing off some dynamite dark comedy chops in the few minutes of levity in the film.
There’s definitely a caper feel, and a few beats of “I Care a Lot” feel like they’re about to take a Tarantino or a Cohen brothers turn into sadistic or ironic comedy. But those moments are never fully realized.
Instead, this is a villain’s movie. Marla is clearly the bad guy and what she’s doing is utterly vile, but it’s also utterly glorified as the filmmakers repeatedly underscore how clever she is and how she’s always one step ahead.
Writer/Director J. Blakeson (“The Disappearance of Alice Creed”) has made a stylish movie, with strong performances all around, and some very polished and sharp cinematography.
However, it’s ultimately about a manipulative woman who abuses the elderly for a living and gets away with it. If that’s the best message the filmmakers could come up with … what’s the point?
There are arguably more successfully villain-centric movies that brim with social commentary, from “Natural Born Killers” to the more recent “Joker.” Both of those examples showed some kind of tragedy that – if they didn’t make us empathize with the main characters, they at least made us aware of the terrible systems that created them.
That doesn’t happen in “I Care a Lot.” It’s a movie that – for two hours – can be very upsetting and is without enough character development to justify the villain, or enough comeuppance to give the audience some kind of relief.
For such a well-made movie, it’s surprisingly painful to watch.
PCL Rating: Low Taste It
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: Rotten
Tags: film review, I Care A Lot Netflix 2021, movie review, netflix, netflix movie, Peter Dinklage, pop culture leftovers, Rosamund Pike
Categorised in: Movie Reviews
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