Choose your victims wisely: a review of I Care A Lot

I Care A Lot

Directed by J Blakeson

Produced by Teddy Schwarzman, Ben Stillman, Michael Heimler, & J Blakeson

Written by J Blakeson

Cast

Rosamund Pike as Marla Grayson

Peter Dinklage as Roman Lunyov

Eiza González as Fran

Dianne Wiest as Jennifer Peterson

Chris Messina as Dean Ericson

Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Judge Lomax

Macon Blair as Feldstrom

Alicia Witt as Dr. Karen Amos

Damian Young as Sam Rice

Nicholas Logan as Alexi Ignatyev

Twenty minutes into the movie, you’ll be utterly appalled. It’s stunning how ruthlessly, efficiently, and legally the life of an independent, healthy senior citizen (Wiest) can be completely destroyed. All it takes is a vicious sociopath (Pike), a bent doctor (Witt), and a credulous judge (Whitlock). And yes, it does happen. Far too often.

“How can this possibly be a comedy?” you ask yourself. “This is horrifying.” You watch as a retired banker, just beginning a happy and active retirement, is put in custodianship, packed off to a rest home (a nice one, but still a prison), and stripped of all her belongings, including her home.

Marla and Fran ( González) are repainting the interior of their ill-gotten home for resale when a taxi driver turns up to take Jennifer to a unstated appointment. The two custodians send him off, slightly puzzled. Their victim supposedly had no family, no close friends, nobody with standing to fight for her rights.

The terrified taxi driver (actually a chaffeur) reports back to his real boss, Roman Lunyov (Dinklage). Lunyov, it turns out, is very rich, very powerful, very vicious, and, it seems, secretly the devoted son of Jennifer. The moment Dinklage steps out of his Yukon to berate the chauffeur, it stops being unrelievedly grim, and becomes a sparkling, brilliant black comedy. While none of the characters could be described as warm and cuddly (no, not even Jennifer, who is a more polite version of Tony Soprano’s mum) they are all oddly appealing. Neither Grayson nor Lunyov are weak in any way, and a classic confrontation slowly builds.

Dinklage is at his best, equal to the first four seasons of Game of Thrones. But it’s very much an ensemble work.

The film takes a hard swipe at the out-of-control capitalism that is drowning the United States, and gives the story a clear moral focus, even as you remain unsure which of the two characters you want to see prevail. It has an ending worthy of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels.

Now on Netflix.