NY Times Puzzle No. 0115
ACROSS
Ballpark figure
1
Sentimentality
7
Wallet holder
15
since 2015
Hit Netflix
16
reboot starring the Fab Five Matured
17
There’s often a
18
lot of them for sale
Some office
19
desk clutter Writers Roald
20
and Sophie Bottom of an
21
interrobang Safari’s
22
compass, e.g. Feel for
23
Nested layers?
24
Mass
25
Breakneck …
26
or something to break
Sticky snack
27
made with a stick
Eclipsed
29
everyone else One getting
32
fired up for competition? Shower heads,
35
perhaps
“The Wolf
37
in Sheep’s Clothing,” for one
Mindless
39
Iowa college
40
Game that
41
can be played on bicycles or elephants Change for
42
some sawbucks, maybe
Symbols of
43
strength
Fantasy monster
44
Catches
45
XXXL
47
Complete loss
48
of self-identity Hot streak?
50
Where one
51
might hear a call for action Metaphorical
52
incentive Members of
53
some blended families
Goes quietly,
54
perhaps
DOWN
Honchos
1
Fruits that are
2
the basis of Marillenschnaps Dance with jerky
3
movements Actress Julie of
4
“Modern Family” Cross to bear
5
Casual
6
agreement
Topic in
7
property law, colloquially
Like a good job,
8
maybe Prominent part
9
of a pump Rx pickups
10
Story ___
11
Honcho
12
County in
13
Northern
Ireland
Peels off?
14
Spilled the tea,
20
so to speak
Model Boyd
23
who inspired the songs “Layla” and “Wonderful Tonight”
Kind of manual
24
Wild
26
Uses a manual,
27
say
Israel’s Dayan
28
Ferrari
30
alternative, slangily
Percussion in
31
some folk music that may be improvised Captured, in a
33
way
Fashion
34
designer’s portfolio Employs as a
36
backup plan, with “to” Blanked on
37
Recess
38
Frost
41
accumulation
Written in the 42
stars
Really weird 43
Number shown 45
in brackets?
“Hidden Figures” 46
org.
___ jacket 47
Baba ghanouj, 49
e.g.
Hosts 50
An air of mystery surrounded Rosamund Pike in “Gone Girl” but there’s no mistaking her in “I Care a Lot.” Sporting designer suits and a bob cut so sharp that you tremble for her stylist, Pike’s Marla Grayson is ruthlessly imperious from head to toe.
The title of J Blakeson’s sleekly sinister neonoir is tongue and cheek. Marla, a shark on par with Gordon Gekko or Jaws, doesn’t care even a little. She’s a legal guardian to dozens of elderly people whom she bilks for everything they’re worth.
A wall of their faces and names adorns her Boston office the way stock portfolios might a financier. “Playing fair is a joke invented by rich people to keep the rest of us poor,” she intones in the movie’s opening voice over.
When so much real terror is stalking nursing homes, the timing of “I Care a Lot” (it debuts Friday on Netflix) is perhaps not ideal. Marla’s scheme is a particularly loathsome one, and the feeling of disgust only grows as writerdirector Blakeson, the British filmmaker of the kidnap thriller “The Disappearance of Alice Creed,” depicts an interwoven system of elder abuse, with doctors and nursing home mangers all taking a cut. One of them hands Marla a “cherry” — an especially desirable new ward because she’s both wealthy and lacking any apparent living family that might interfere — in Jennifer (Dianne Wiest).
A few falsified health records and a judge’s rubber stamp later, Jennifer is abruptly hauled off to a facility where her phone is taken and even straying outside is off limits. Marla and her partner-girlfriend (Eiza González), quickly start auctioning off her stuff.
At this point, “I Care a Lot” seems poised to become another nightmare of wrongful institutionalization — a “Shock Corridor” for rest homes. Having Dianne Wiest locked up is no less infuriating than Jack Nicholson being strapped into a mental hospital.
But the twists and turns of “I Care a Lot” lead elsewhere — in more comic, off-balanced but generally deviously delightful directions.
Jennifer turns out to be not just a meek old lady living alone but the mother of a powerful and well-financed underworld figure with ties to the Russian mafia, Roman Lunyov (Peter Dinklage). Dinklage, as he often does, immediately recalibrates the movie, as Roman summons his forces — minions who cower before him while he snacks on an eclair or sips a smoothie — to free his mother.
It also rebalances our allegiance. There is, in one sense, no one to root for “I Care a Lot,” a movie where the most sympathetic figure drugs her imprisoned wards to keep them quiet. Instead, Blakeson’s film is gleefully amoral, less concerned with judging its obviously heinous characters than crafting a satire of American capitalism as a system where human trafficking is a mode of doing business.
It also positions Marla as something more than a greedy vulture. Her resistance to the various entreaties from Roman’s team — foremost among them is a very good Chris Messina as a knowing attorney who nevertheless can’t match Marla in court — seems reckless and foolish at first. Who would dare turn down a fearsome, well-armed international mafioso who, in this case, also happens to be in the right?
But Marla’s resistance, as a woman undeterred by male intimidation, accumulates in courage. “Do you know how many times I’ve been threatened by a man?” she says, utterly unimpressed.
Is this a lot for a film about a corrupt court-appointed guardian? Yes. It doesn’t all fit together, and “I Care a Lot” has ultimately no way of resolving its fairly ludicrous plot. But it’s strong, gripping, unpredictable pulp, and Pike pulls something off that few else could as a protagonist. She’s quite detestable and completely compelling.