I Care A Lot could easily have been called ‘This Is Where Late-Stage Capitalism Gets You, Suckers’, or quite simply: ‘Christ: People Are Dreadful’. Because really, they are. If this film has a message, this is it.
The most dreadful (probably, maybe) of all is Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike), a guardian/conservator, who turns up at the house of OAP Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest) with police officers in tow and says, “The court has ruled that you require assistance in taking care of yourself,” before, under the guise of dementia, carting her off to a senior living facility.
But Blakeson, it turns out, is far more interested in subverting the signifiers of filmmaking than reinforcing them.
As Jennifer unwillingly walks through the doors that are swiftly locked behind her, she’s greeted by static smiling staff, dressed all in white, holding balloons in welcome. While she’s medicated and held against her will, Marla, now in control of her assets, goes about selling her home and everything in it — with help from girlfriend and associate-in- crime Fran (Eiza González).
The first act is J Blakeson’s (The Disappearance Of Alice Creed) pure pulpy take on this Kafka-esque nightmare. Marla — built cell by cell from ambition and greed — is the American Dream writ large and taken to its logical, if twisted, conclusion. "There are lions and lambs in this world," she says, in an opening narration. “And I’m a fucking lioness,” before concluding later, “I want to be rich… really fucking rich.”
Marla has deafening echoes of not just Gone Girl’s Amy Dunne (a blunt, sliced blonde bob; the icy, clipped voiceover) but also Nicole Kidman’s Suzanne Stone in To Die For. She sacrifices her own humanity in the craven pursuit of wealth, only hitting a wall in her seemingly unstoppable quest when it transpires that Jennifer isn’t in fact a “cherry” (a victim with “no kids, no living family”), but the mother of a Russian Mob boss (a delicious Peter Dinklage). “I’m the worst mistake you’ve ever made,” smiles Wiest, at her terrifying matriarch-on-sedatives best.
Her son’s arrival suggests a well-trod narrative is about to be triggered: of rescue, revenge, of righting wrongs. But Blakeson, it turns out, is far more interested in subverting the signifiers of filmmaking than reinforcing them. No character bends when they’re supposed to bend, begs when they’re told to get on their knees. There is, it has to be said, something entirely thrilling about seeing a woman who should be in fear of her life shrug it off with a smile and say, “You can’t get a woman to do what you want, then you call her a bitch and threaten to kill her.”
And while the writer/director doesn’t always remain in full control of the story and tone, the ride is so wild and entertaining that it doesn’t particularly matter when the wheels come off. This film has much to say about the corrupting nature of the American Dream, elder exploitation, the futility of capitalism and a healthcare system that puts profits before people. And sure, all of that’s in there, but really, what it boils down to is something much more simple: Christ: People Are Dreadful.
