A really good watch - I Care A Lot
I haven’t done a film review here for aaaaages. So let me make up for that with this savagely entertaining, darkly funny, gleefully disturbing recommendation.
I Care A Lot starts as an all too worryingly plausible story of a conniving hustler who works as a court appointed guardian for dozens of elderly wards. Purporting to have their best interests at heart, Marla Grayson, played with mesmerising intensity by Rosamund Pike, is actually systematically stripping each of them of their assets and syphoning their money into her own account.
When one of her colluding accomplices, a local doctor, identifies a target - a woman she describes as a “cherry”owing to her affluence and lack of family members - Marla jumps at the apparent opportunity. But Jennifer Peterson (the reliably watchable Dianne Wiest) is not what she seems, and Marla, along with her partner and lover, Fran (Eiza González), find themselves grappling with the unwelcome attention of Roman (Peter Dinklage), a former Russian mafia drug trafficker with a penchant for cakes, smoothies and violent, vicious rages.
Fran (Eiza González) and Marla (Rosamund Pike) escort a bewildered Jennifer (Dianne Wiest) to the care facility where the court has ruled she must live
It’s not often that you can so thoroughly enjoy watching a cast of almost entirely unsympathetic characters, or find your allegiance quite so frequently switching between them. Rosamund Pike - who won a Golden Globe for her performance - is both unapologetically despicable and fiendishly focused as Marla, a terrifying sociopath, with a bob that’s as razor sharp as she is, who will quite literally stop at nothing to achieve her aim to make herself as rich as possible.
Marla (Rosamund Pike) contemplating who will fill the available space on her client (aka victim) wall
Has she met her match in the scenery-chewing, lunatic Roman, played with almost cartooonish ferociousness by Dinklage? I’m certainly not going to give away any spoilers.
Vicious v vicious. Rosamund Pile as Marla comes face to face with Roman, played by Peter Dinklage for the first time
What I will say is that the emotional heft of the opening part of the film - the vulnerability of older people to this kind of scam - perfectly portrayed by Wiest who swings between bewilderment, helplessness and fury- gradually gives way to more generic, heart rate-raising thriller/heist action.
And that there’s a final twist that I certainly didn’t see coming. I wonder whether you will.
I Care A Lot is available on Amazon Prime
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