I Care A Lot (2021) * * *

 

Directed by:  J Blakeson

Starring:  Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinklage, Dianne Wiest, Alicia Witt, Eiza Gonzalez, Chris Messina

Marla Grayson (Pike) is a con artist looking to be the taker and not the taken in life.   She claims to care a lot, but she really just takes a lot.   Working with a team of like-minded lowlifes, Marla throws unwitting senior citizens into nursing homes, takes over as conservator legally in court, and then loots their assets while preventing family from seeing them.   It's a cold scheme which takes nerve, which Marla has in abundance.   One day, a doctor in on the con (Witt) proposes a well-off elderly patient named Jennifer Peterson (Wiest) to be the next victim of the scam.   Jennifer is a "cherry", meaning she has no family or heirs and has tons of dough.   Marla's eyes widen.   Jennifer is the next innocent woman to be chucked into a nursing home and locked away forever.   It doesn't take long for Marla to realize she did this to one too many seniors, especially when a Russian mobster named Roman (Dinklage) takes an interest in the case.

Roman sends his shark attorney to Marla's swanky office with a proposition.   We give you cash, you give up conservatorship of Jennifer, and maybe you'll live.  Otherwise, things will get ugly quick.  Marla refuses and soon things get ugly like the attorney promised.    How nasty things get I will leave you to discover.   One of the charms of the darkly comic I Care A Lot is seeing how far Marla will go to save her con, while seeing how far Roman will go to stop it, or at least get Jennifer out.  

Pike relishes this role and it shows in her devious smile.   Unlike Pike's most famous role to date in Gone Girl (2014), Marla gleefully displays her sociopathic tendencies for all to see.   She isn't out for revenge against anyone, just enrichment for herself and her partner/lover Frankie (Gonzalez),   If Marla has any Achilles heel, so to speak, it's her obvious love for Frankie.   Roman plays straight to that.  Dinklage and Wiest provide rich supporting performances as people who are not what they seem.   At least Marla lays her cards on the table.   She actually proposes that her way is at least more fair and quasi-legal.  

I Care A Lot almost ventures into absurdity and self-parody when Marla and Roman try to kill the other.   Instead of putting a bullet in someone's head and calling it a day, they set up elaborate plans to make the deaths look like accidents.   But then I Care A Lot rights itself with a couple of late developments you don't see coming.   In a way, Marla gets what she wants at long last...and deserves.