You know those Life Alert commercials? Everyone knows these devices are meant to solve a real problem, but there’s just something so darkly funny about the overacting seniors screaming “I’VE FALLEN AND I CAN’T GET UP!!!!”? I Care a Lot lives in that morbidly funny zone, but with much, MUCH more cynicism. Rosamund Pike’s character in this movie would be laughing at the life alert seniors and then disappear when she’s needed most.
Pike’s Marla Grayson is playing a run of the mill ruthless capitalist. Her and her partner Fran’s (Eiza Gonzalez) “business” (read: scam) is truly sinister: she takes “guardianship” of the elderly and compromised, imprisoning them inside their nursing homes while she extracts as much money from the old person as possible. One day, the doctor (Alicia Witt) Marla uses to funnel old people to her business informs Marla of a cherry, Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest). A cherry in Marla’s world is a childless husblandless rich, relatively healthy person. Marla sinks her company’s teeth in with relish, though it appears that bite has something bitter as Jennifer’s quiet existence may not be as simple as her exterior lets on.
For a long while there, Glenn Close held the femme fatale trophy. However, Rosamund Pike won it for ever and always after 2014’s Gone Girl. She channels that sociopathy into her job in I Care a Lot. The first hour of this film is a master class from Pike: a human shell with 4% of a soul used on Fran only. We see her go from a courtroom charmer to an empathetic summons official to a lecherous human wasteland to a vindictive psycho depending on what scenario she is presented with. No matter what threat she is presented with, Marla makes sure she is the lioness she preaches that everyone needs to become to be successful in this world. Pike’s performance also shines a light on a real problem: the leechy, profitable, moral ambiguity of the guardianship industry. I panicked about 45 minutes in and Googled if Marla’s story was real. It’s not, but the industry VERY much is, and it’s terrifying practices are shone in big shocking letters thanks to Pike’s performance and the direct, harrowingly honest script that shows just how helpless these old people can be at the hands of a solely profit driven guardian.
I wish that J Blakeson trusted his story a little more, especially how compelling it is. We could have seen the depths of Marla’s tactics as she tries to maintain a hold on Jennifer Peterson to extract as much money from her as possible. The main story about guardianship gets further and further sidelined as we learn more about Dianne Wiest’s backstory. Though it’s disappointing in the direction the story takes, it’s still wholly entertaining as the action really starts to dial up. And I will say this: Blakeson’s script never does shy away from its cynical mood/style, finding an ending that for the most part is pretty surprising by American moviemaking standards but fits the movie like OJ’s leather glove.
Movies like I Care a Lot are why you should never trust a salesman or someone you don’t know who wants to “help” you. People like Rosamund Pike’s Marla Grayson replace suffixes on the sly: taking a selfless industry and making it entirely selfish. I’m so glad that Rosamund Pike got married in 2009; based on her career choices since then, she’s certainly scared most of her prospects away, and maybe even has her husband more than a little nervous as well.