Served on a pitch-black platter, Ethan J. Blakeson's nastily rendered “I Care a Lot” has no likable characters. In fact, everyone in this dark comedy is either a sociopath, a psychopath, or both.
A riveting and ice-cold Rosamund Pike, playing dead-eyed, immoral legal guardian Marla Grayson, is the reason to watch Blakeson’s film. It might just be the best work of her entire career. Her Grayson makes a living by legally, yes legally, scamming defenseless seniors out of their assets, with the intention of taking control of their lives and shutting out any family members from seeing them. It’s a horrendously immoral piece of business, and having this character as not just our main protagonist, but also the film’s narrative, is a risky decision by Blakeson.
In familiar dog-eat-dog mentality, Marla outright tells us from the get-go that there are two types of people in this world: lions and lambs. "My name is Marla Grayson and I am no lamb. I am a fucking lioness.” Although she is a strong female character, there is no way to go around the fact that Grayson is despicable; the elder abuse she commits is deplorable, ditto Blakeson’s tackling of the gullible Judge Lomax (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) and, really, the entire American legal system, which grants Grayson the power to do whatever the hell she wants just because she is part of the establishment.
Things get a little dicey for Jennifer when she decides to pull another stunt, this time on Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), a cognitively functioning old woman, who sits on a fortune of wealth, and with no known family to defend her once taken into custody. She is relocated to a retirement facility against her will, stripped of her cell phone, and Marla starts reaping the benefits of selling Jennifer’s large house in an upscale neighborhood, not to mention her safety deposit box containing diamonds worth millions of dollars.
A problem arises, however: this old lady actually has ties to Roman Lunyov (Peter Dinklage), a powerful career criminal, equally despicable in moral ineptitude to Marla, who vows to seek revenge on the powerful Grayson. However, his bribes, death threats, and kidnapping attempts all fail, and Roman learns that Marla is not easily intimidated. She’s like a comic book villain who just can’t be conquered. She retaliates by upping Jennifer's meds and stripping her of food.
At about 2/3 into the movie, when I realized there wouldn’t be a person to root for, the film’s thrills shut down and I resorted to wishing an ill fate to every single one of these characters. The heartlessness of this dark comedy becomes too ridiculous, ditto some of the plotting in the script, which veers towards the predictable. Don’t get me wrong, for the most part, this is gruesomely delivered fun, if not always entirely plausible. But Blakeson and editor Mark Eckersley keep things moving at a wicked pace.
Less successful is the subplot involving Marla’s business and romantic partner, Fran (Eiza González). The story doesn’t gain much by making Marla a lesbian, and Fran, although continuously on-board the scheming train of her partner-in-crime, lazily becomes the film’s moral ground.
Meanwhile, the performances are universally stellar. Pike, as mentioned, is incredible, as the vaping madwoman with a cool-as-ice demeanor. Wiest is in fine form, playing, at first the victim, and then the devious matriarch of a ruthless crime syndicate. Dinklage is effective in playing a gangster, pastry-loving Russian who finds his match in Marla. [B-/C+]
After this weekend, when “Artificial” and “Behemoth!” screen at NYFF, there won’t be many Oscar contenders left unseen. In fact, by my count, there are just two: ‘Cliff Booth,’ and “Dune: Part Three.”