Film Review: I Care a Lot
The return of the villain protagonist
Rosamund Pike shines in J Blakeson’s pitch-black neo-noir, I Care a Lot. Biting, cynical, and featuring a welcome return of the villain protagonist, the film finds exhilaration through wickedness and hairpin turns, even if its messaging remains muddled. I Care a Lot balances on the knife’s edge - not always successfully - with its unrepentant characters, but through slick construction and a bevy of crackling performances, it’s remarkably efficient at finding glee in moral vacuum. Minor spoilers ahead…
“There’s two types of people in this world. Those who take and those that get took. Predators and prey. Lions and lambs.” If you’re the moviegoer that needs to root for a film’s characters, then I Care a Lot - filmmaker J Blakeson’s darkly comic noir - might be a tough pill to swallow. Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike, once again donning the perfect bob of Amazing Amy) runs a well-oiled machine of reprobate self-interest: a multi-pronged scam that puts dozens of elderly men and women in her care, only for them to be divested of their assets and property to line Grayson’s pockets. It’s a perfect grift that involves her partner and lover Frances (Eiza Gonzáles), a doctor accomplice (Alicia Witt) willing to declare the victims mentally unfit, and a shady eldercare administrator (Damian Young). But when one of her “cherries” (the inimitable Dianne Wiest) turns out to be the entirely wrong person to target, Grayson’s carefully built enterprise comes tumbling down.
There’s no doubt that I Care a Lot is stomach-churning stuff, shining a light on the horrors of elder abuse before delving into whole other quagmires of unsavoriness. And it may even strike a recently shredded nerve - only weeks ago, HBO’s documentary, Framing Britney Spears, revealed just how opportunistic and criminal conservatorships could be. But the film balances its protagonist’s innate repulsiveness with a wickedly entertaining performance; not unlike the difficult men of the peak TV era and other mostly-male antiheroes, it’s a delight to behold Marla Grayson - like Walter White or Tony Soprano before her - employ her guile, wits, and sheer brazenness to overcome her obstacles. Rosamund Pike revels in the opportunity to turn her heels once again, and it’s her deliciously ruthless performance that buoys I Care a Lot.
“Rosamund Pike revels in the opportunity to turn her heels once again, and it’s her deliciously ruthless performance - along with Blakeson’s clever script - that buoys I Care a Lot.”
With a full savings account, a beautiful home, and apparently no relatives, Jennifer Peterson (Wiest) is an ideal mark for Marla and Frances. But little do our criminal protagonists know, the act of conning Peterson comes with a laundry list of complications. It’s not long before this seemingly innocent target drops her facade, and all sorts of shady characters come crawling out of the woodwork. Part of the fun of I Care a Lot is to witness Marla’s gumption and audacity, watching her grapple with the likes of a sleazy lawyer (Chris Messina, making the most out of his limited screen time) or a dangerous mob boss (Peter Dinklage), but it’s never far from the forefront of our consciousness that nearly everyone in this movie is relentlessly amoral. Blakeson is adept at placing his characters in no-win situations, only to have them break free in the wildest of ways - just see his feature debut of The Disappearance of Alice Creed, an underappreciated, but absolutely worthwhile kidnapping drama. But while I Care a Lot shares similar DNA with Alice Creed, it carries a message much more muddled than its predecessor.
The issue with I Care a Lot isn’t that everyone is horrible, or even its depictions of elder abuse - there’s no shame in admitting that there’s fun in Marla’s blatant villainy and scheming - but the film isn’t quite sure what its message is. Unable to juggle its “girlboss” satire, late-stage capitalism critique, and its morally bankrupt characters in a cohesive manner, Blakeson’s script feels just a little hollow. Also, I’d be remiss not to mention how the film does Dianne Wiest dirty - the only other character with remotely the same presence as Rosamund Pike, it’s a shame that she’s shuffled off to the sidelines halfway through the film, which is - coincidentally or not - when the narrative begins to slog. Its largely thriller-by-rote third act even hints at a plot going soft on its swindler protagonist, but the film fortunately has the wherewithal to end Marla’s arc at its obvious and natural terminus. Throughout much of its 118-minute runtime, I Care a Lot dances around its hazy throughlines, but it’s nice to know that when the chips are down, the movie knows exactly how to - with force and clarity - punctuate its final moments.
I Care a Lot is a welcome return for a character archetype that’s been absent from the silver screen for quite some time: the villain protagonist. With its saturated, bubblegum aesthetic and buzzing synth score, the film has style to spare while falling into its neo-noir trappings. It works much, much better as a disposable jaunt than any sort of pointed commentary, but there wasn’t a second I wasn’t glued to the screen. Undoubtedly, there will be those - like me - enraptured by I Care a Lot’s razor-sharp acidity, and there will also be those who bristle against its utter deficiency of morals, but one thing is for sure: no one plays bad quite like Rosamund Pike.
