I Care a Lot, A Review

Deliciously nasty.

I Care a Lot follows Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike), a con-artist who makes her living by scamming the elderly by posing as their legal guardian. With the help of girlfriend Fran (Eiza González), Marla uses her connections to Dr. Amos (Alicia Witt) to force various elderly people into care homes so that she can then sell off their homes and everything inside. Despite numerous family complaints, Marla upholds her con by acting as her victim’s guardians, pretending to care about their best interests.

Marla’s latest victim is Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), a well-off woman with no family, making her the perfect mark. Marla works her usual game and forces Jennifer into a care home and begins making her profit. Things take a turn however when Mafia lawyer Dean Ericson (Chris Messina, Birds of Prey) turns up stating that Jennifer is not to be harmed. Marla brushes this off but later discovers that Jennifer is actually the mother of crime lord Roman Lunyov (Peter Dinklage), who threatens her is she doesn’t release his mother. With both sides refusing to step down, Marla and Roman wage a war against each other over Jennifer’s safety. But in a battle of no morals who will win and who will come out the other side unharmed?

I Care a Lot was a film full of high stakes, brilliant laughs and some real devious characters. Watching was a truly entertaining experience and I really had a lot of fun with it. At its surface, I Care a Lot may seem like a war between two equally evil characters but that doesn’t mean the film isn’t likeable in its own way. Marla is the sort of character you just love to hate and watching her scam her way through life was a wild ride full of comedy and plenty of shock factor. A truly entertaining film.

Marla’s con was so brilliantly clever and evil all at the same time. Watching her pose as these elderly people’s guardian and then proceeding to rob them blind was absolutely wild. It only makes you wonder whether this sort of thing could ever happen in real life. I also liked how Marla used her caring persona, and to some extent her gender- as a way to fool everybody. Acting as someone who cared meant that nobody ever suspected she was up to no good. The few times she was confronted, all she had to do was put on her act and then she was free, she really was an evil genius.

Rosamund Pike really is amazing in this film (and in general really). Her performance as Marla was just amazing and I can see exactly why she won the recent Golden Globe. Marla was coniving and so, so evil but at the same time she was stylish and fabulous and just so compelling, I loved her. Pike really does have a knab for playing these crazy evil characters (eg Amy in Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl) and I’m happy that she’s getting recognition for this film after the lack of for her performance in Gone Girl.

This film was a very morally dubious one, with both sides of the story having very few reedeming qualities. On the one hand we had Marla and Fran who were conning and stealing from the elderly and on the other we had Roman, a murderous mafia boss- there really were no good people to be found. Because of this it was difficult to choose who to root for- I absolutely loved Marla but at the same time I could see exactly why Roman was coming after her. I have to say it was quite refreshing to have a film which such morally corrupt characters, with no good people in sight I felt no guilt over my love for Marla and was able to watch and enjoy without worrying about the moral implications of what was going on.

Overall I really enjoyed I Care a Lot. The film had a crazy premise and Marla was just a fabulously evil character. Pike gave a brilliant performance and watching her scam the elderly was weirdly enjoyable to see. The film was crazy and morally wrong on so many levels and I absolutely loved it. Watching these two evil people go head to head was an absolute blast, it was brilliant.