"I Care a Lot" gives Pike another juicy and vicious ice queen to play

I Care a Lot (2021)

From its title to the bookending scenes of what feel like a self-help video about ambition, “I Care a Lot” uses irony and satire to get to the heart of the matter: capitalism, baby. Gaming the system all for profit is exactly what its diabolical protagonist does, even if it means unconscionably having full authority of someone and wiping that someone completely of their agency. Writer-director J Blakeson’s “I Care A Lot” is not the first film, nor will it be the last, that asks the viewer to spend time with an amoral character, but not necessarily caring about them doesn’t make this story any less riveting. Like “The Wolf of Wall Street”—and this is just one example of many—watching not-so-nice people do not-so-nice things can be darkly funny and highly entertaining to watch.

Ice-cold, vape-puffing, powersuit-wearing Rosamund Pike—those icy blue eyes!—is apparently the best kind of Rosamund Pike. As pitch-perfect as she was in playing brilliant, meticulous and insane ice queen Amy Dunne in “Gone Girl,” Pike occupies a similar mode for her dynamic turn as Marla Grayson, another unscrupulous character whom we’re probably not meant to warm up to but we still can’t take our eyes off of her. Appointed by the court to take on a senior ward and act as their legal conservator, Marla is like a vampire, sucking dry those of allegedly unsound mind. She says all the right things—“I really care” and “I’m here to help”—but underneath it all, everything she does is transactional, not relational. In executing each cash-cow scam, Marla colludes with a doctor (Alicia Witt), and this time, the doc has found her a “cherry” in Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), a never-married woman with no living family but really good insurance. All Marla has to do now is force Jennifer into a care facility and auction off the house. This time, though, Marla finds her match in someone (Peter Dinklage) connected to Jennifer who will be able to outmaneuver her. 

As precision cutting as her blond bob and able to turn on the polite smile when she needs to, Marla is so persuasive and ruthless that it’s no wonder she’s used to being threatened. When the adult son (Macon Blair) to one of her wards approaches her outside the courthouse and hopes out loud that she gets raped and murdered for what she’s done, Marla doesn’t cower. She claps right back, and her threat of grabbing his manhood and cutting it clean off convinces us that she would and could do just that. Marla is scarily comfortable in having no remorse for her actions, which just draws the viewer in even more to see if she can get away with her hustle. In what is a generally black-hearted film, the one shred of humanity comes in her loyal and loving relationship with Fran (a lovely Eiza González), her business partner and girlfriend.

Beyond Rosamund Pike ripping it up, never underestimate a movie that features Peter Dinklage, equally low-key and volatile as a Russian mobster who likes ring workouts and enjoys pastry shopping for macaroons. Dianne Wiest, bless her heart, might seem like all she has to do is be a compliant mark and then try fighting back as Jennifer, but her character has surprises, and Wiest slyly owns her menacing line deliveries. Chris Messina also gets a deliciously juicy scene as a slick lawyer who tries getting Marla to budge. 

J Blakeson has already proven he can pull off a tight little thriller like 2010’s “The Disappearance of Alice Creed”—and maybe less so with the dystopian YA adaptation 2016’s “The 5th Wave”—so it’s a relief that he can bring such a propulsive verve to this compulsively compelling pitch-black comedy. With “I Care a Lot,” Blakeson executes a tone that’s just as tricky as Marla’s methods. His script may take a few turns that fully require disbelief to be suspended—unless Marla is a superhero—but just like Marla herself, it’s always prickly, barbed and no-holds-barred. It also does not cop out or let Marla off the hook, concluding with one of the most wicked Feel-Bad Endings of the Year. As Marla confidently states at the beginning, she is not a lamb but “a fucking lioness.” Her film is just as vicious, and delectably so.

Grade: B +

Netflix released “I Care a Lot” (118 min.) to stream on February 19, 2021.