GRIFTERS GONNA GRIFT
I Care a Lot is a fun but forgettable film that asks: `This is where we ended up?'
Pulpy, trashy and ultimately forgettable, I Care a Lot may not be great filmmaking but it's audacious storytelling and a heckuva ride. And before you complain that it crashes and burns in the final act, stop and ask yourself: How could it not?
Rosamund Pike has a Golden Globe nomination for her turn as Marla Grayson, a predatory lawyer whose grift is to get herself appointed as legal guardian to wealthy seniors, whom she then institutionalizes while liquidating their savings. It's pretty small-time (though not to the victims) and relies on a small circle of accomplices, including Eiza González as Fran, Marla's assistant and lover. It also helps that she always seems to be dealing with the same credulous judge.
Writer-director J Blakeson (The Disappearance of Alice Creed) takes his time getting to the meat of the story. We spend a while learning how Marla operates, then a little longer watching as she and Fran pull their scheme on well-off Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), hustling her into a nursing home and then selling off her home and chattels in a whirlwind montage that suggests the whole process takes just hours.
We're a good 25 minutes into the movie's nearly two hours before Peter Dinklage shows up as Roman Lunyov, a mysterious, dangerous crime boss who seems to know Wiest's character, and is none too happy to learn she's essentially been kidnapped. He sends his lawyer (Chris Messina, suave and sharky) to bribe and/or threaten Marla, tasks he pursues with evident glee. Their back-and-forth is just one example of syncopation in this snappy screenplay.
Blakeson keeps a few cards far up his sleeve, as characters are occasionally revealed to have reserves of strength or cunning we didn't see coming. Pike has played some tough women ( journalist Marie Colvin in A Private War, for instance) but I've always thought of her as an English Rose kind of actor. That's not meant as a put-down: It's in the same vein as how I wouldn't cast Steve Zahn as James Bond. But after I Care a Lot, I'd happily cast Pike as 007.
The battle between Roman and Marla is a thrilling one. This isn't
one of those cat-and-mouse plots where you're not sure who's the cat and who's the mouse. This is one where you're not even sure it's a mouse at all.
But you know who can't write themselves out of a narrative corner? Cats! Blakeson's screenplay introduces a few holes and loose threads in the early going, then doubles down again and again until there's more empty space than plot.
The actors are all doing their best — I particularly enjoyed Wiest's horror-movie delivery of her lines from inside the nursing home — but by the end it's like watching a cartoon character spinning her feet over a bottomless chasm.
That law of gravity has to kick in sooner or later.
I'd say it's good while it lasts, but the truth is it lasts longer than is good, right down to a pair of endings that play out in parallel, neither one completely believable nor satisfying.
I Care a Lot is a fun trip, but rather than ask “Are we there yet?” you may find yourself complaining: “This is where we ended up?”