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

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. It doesn’t… There are two types of people in this world. Those who take and those who are took.’ The first shot is of the back of her head. Her bob introduces us to her: precise, razor-sharp, powerful, controlled. You don’t mess with it. Or her. That’s understood, straight away.

Her company, Grayson Guardianship, is a major enterprise with a swish office, several staff and a wall covered in photos of her ‘marks’ which are also her ‘cash cows’. She has a partner, Fran (Eiza Gonzalez), who is also her girlfriend, and there are others in on the scam. One is Sam Rice (Damian Young), the manager of the local care home, and the other is a doctor (Alicia Witt) who, for a cut, will sign patients off as unable to look after themselves.