WICKEDLY WATCHABLE
Actress Rosamund Pike says she had a blast taking a break from playing morally upstanding characters to play a truly appalling person in ‘I Care a Lot’, now streaming in the UAE
In the topsy-turvy comedic thriller I Care a Lot, Rosamund Pike plays Marla Grayson, a ruthless hustler who takes advantage of the elderly by becoming their legal guardian and bleeding them dry of their retirement funds and assets.
Written and directed by the British filmmaker J Blakeson, the movie premiered last autumn at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was acquired by Netflix, and is now streaming on the platform.
Marla, along with her business partner Fran (Eiza Gonzalez), come across Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), who they consider to be the perfect victim — wealthy, healthy and without family. After they have her placed in a home, heavily medicated her and begin to pillage her assets — discovering a secret stash of diamonds — they find themselves on the wrong side of a vicious crime lord (Peter Dinklage).
Yet even in the face of grave danger, Marla holds steady, oneupping anyone who thinks they can intimidate or outwit her.
Many reviews of the film have compared Pike’s performance to her turn as Amy Dunne in Gone Girl,
a role that earned her nominations for the Academy Award, Bafta, Golden Globe and more. Considering the film had not yet been seen very broadly, Pike was also something of a recent surprise Golden Globe nominee for her role in I Care a Lot.
Alongside Marla Grayson and Amy Dunne, Pike has of late portrayed a portfolio of formidable women with roles such as photojournalist Marie Colvin in A Private War and scientist Marie Curie in Radioactive. “I think I’m very drawn to courage in all its many forms,”
“I liked the fact that I’ve been playing these very morally worthy women and I liked ... the chance to be reprehensible. And I thought it was a challenge.” — Rosamund Pike, actress
said Pike on a recent video call from Prague, where she has been shooting the upcoming Amazon series The Wheel of Time. “Marla is courageous, not in the heroic way that Marie Colvin is courageous, but Marla has mettle and I think I’m very drawn to characters with mettle. Maybe they just don’t come to me for the nice, simple, sweet girl.
“I liked the sort of deliciously irresponsible nature of it,” Pike said of her part in I Care a Lot. “I liked the fact that I’ve been playing these very morally worthy women and I liked ... the chance to be reprehensible. And I thought it was a challenge. Can I be totally morally reprehensible and still be fun to watch?”
The film marks the first as writer and director from Blakeson since his 2009 film The Disappearance of Alice Creed, a kidnapping thriller starring Gemma Arterton and Eddie Marsan. In the years since, he directed the feature film The 5th Wave and worked on the series
Gunpowder.
“They both felt very much like me,” said Blakeson of his two films as writer and director. “They sort of cross genre about bad people doing good things, good people doing bad
things. Nobody’s particularly the likeable person in the movie.”
In describing the nasty but fun tone of I Care a Lot, Blakeson mentioned films such as Stanely Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, Billy Wilder’s
Ace in the Hole, Alexander Mackendrick’s Sweet Smell of Success and Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. “The tone that I like to strike is looking at that difficult ugly thing, but doing it through genre and through cinema at the same time,” said Blakeson. “Rather than just ‘Here’s a terrible thing, let’s watch a realist drama about somebody whose parents have been whisked away on drugs to an old people’s home,’ which would be unbearable to watch.”
Chris Messina co-stars as a fasttalking mob lawyer, who arrives on a cloud of fine clothing and vague menace, representing interests concerned for Jennifer Peterson’s well-being. In particular, the lengthy dialogue scene when Messina’s character first visits Marla’s office is a microcosm of the movie and its roller-coaster of mood that often turns on a dime. The chance to share such a long scene with Pike was a real highlight for the actor. “I’ve had that experience so many times with great actors where you’re not quite sure how they did that,” said Messina. “It’s the best seat in the house. And they’re discovering it right in front of you . ... I love the movie and I’m proud of that particular scene, but being front row to Rosamund and seeing all the different variations that she played, it was like a master class.”
Wiest had previously read about this particular type of elder abuse in the guardianship system and so was intrigued to see it portrayed in the film. And she had never done a thriller before, another selling point.
Wiest also has most of her scenes opposite Pike, and the twotime Oscar winner used the same word to describe Pike as Messina did — surprising.
“She’s an incredibly gifted woman,” said Wiest. “She’s not looking to control anything. A lot of actors don’t want to be surprised, they say ‘that’s not in the script’ if you’re spontaneous with a line or something. And so you sort of walk this narrow, boring line. But Rosamund’s up for anything. I mean, she’ll go anywhere . ... An early scene we shot, she said, ‘I never expected you to do that. And it’s so wonderful.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, how great.’”
Pike would say the same thing right back about her fellow actors. She recalled her first scene with Wiest, in which Marla turns up at Jennifer’s house unannounced and describes how the older woman is now legally in her care and will move to a senior care facility. “I think that’s what I ask for really in actors I work with, I want to be surprised,” said Pike.
I Care a Lot turns the tables on audiences repeatedly, establishing Marla as a despicable person, which puts the audience in the uncomfortable position of rooting for Dinklage’s brutal mob boss before upending expectations again and again.
“I like that in movies — I like it when you’re not quite sure what ground you’re standing on,” said Blakeson. “If you think about it for five minutes after the movie, you’re thinking, ‘Is that what I wanted?’ This sort of leaves a bittersweet taste in your mouth like, ‘I really enjoyed that, but should I enjoy that?’ And I think that’s the sort of territory I’m interested in.”
“You keep expecting the person to root for to turn up, for the good guy to turn up and then the good guy never does turn up,” said Pike. “And then you’re like, ‘Hell, everyone’s awful. There is no such thing as good people. So I’m just gonna get on the bandwagon, I suppose and allow myself some sort of moral indiscretion and enjoy it.’”