Sleek, sharp scam
LINDA MARRIC
ROSAMUND PIKE (Gone Girl, Entebbe) shines in this darkly comedic social satire from director J Blakeson (The Disappearance of Alice Creed). Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister in HBO’s Game of Thrones) and double Oscar-winning stage and screen legend Dianne Wiest (Hannah and Her Sisters) also star in this deliciously evil thriller which poses an important question: does a film need to have sympathetic characters for it to work?
Pike stars as Maria Grayson, a government-appointed legal guardian for the elderly who has made a fortune out of defrauding her wards of their earthly possessions. This time however, it looks like the usually sharp and calculating scam artist might have met her match when her latest victim, Jennifer Peterson (Wiest), a seemingly innocuous old lady, turns out to be more than she first appears.
Blakeson presents a handsomely made and sleek crime caper, full of intriguing twist and turns and with a great dollop of surrealism added for good measure. Admittedly, the film lives in a heightened reality where we are expected to believe the almost unfathomable, but that is exactly where Blakeson’s genius lies.
Elevated by three impeccable performances courtesy of Pike, Dinklage and Wiest, I Care a Lot does a great job in challenging preconceived ideas around action and consequence while asking some commendably pertinent questions about the evils of capitalism and the failure of the American dream. All in all, an absolute delight from start to finish.