Deborah Ross

Horrible – but in a very fun way: I Care a Lot reviewed

Rosamund Pike is icy and ferocious, and it'll make you dread old age more than you already do, if that’s possible

Icy and ferocious: Rosamund Pike as Marla Grayson in I Care a Lot 
issue 20 February 2021

I Care a Lot is a deliciously dark comic thriller that You’ll Enjoy a Lot. It’s heartless. It’s vicious. It’s savage. It’ll make you dread old age even more than you already do, if that’s possible. It’s horrible in so many ways — cruel? Did I mention it’s also cruel? — yet it is also smart, stylish and such a fun watch.

Written and directed by J. Blakeson (The Disappearance of Alice Creed), the film stars Rosamund Pike as Marla Grayson, who runs a business ripping off old people. Or, to put it more formally, she is a court-appointed legal guardian for elderly wards — or ‘marks’, as she calls them — whose assets she then seizes perfectly legally. Her voiceover at the outset tells us where she’s at. The American dream, she says, is a hoax. ‘I used to be like you, thinking that working hard and playing fair would lead to success and happiness.

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