Maybe some of you didn’t have an aunt who was kidnapped by a “health care professional” last summer. Admittedly, you might therefore find this film a little harder to relate to than I. For me, I Care a Lot was as much a horror film as it was a tense drama. The viewer is left choosing between the kind of person who would scam your mom for every last cent while she rots in an old folks home v. the kind of person who would flat-out kill your mom to stay out of jail; all else being equal, I don’t know whom to root for.
For those of you who don’t have a kidnapped aunt, let me run you through the basic scenario: old people generally tend to have money (on average, a lot more than young people, that’s for sure). To be certain, we still –from time-to-time- get the occasional tale of a single old lady living on cat food. These stories tend to be anecdotal evidence rather than genuine scientific data – of course, if you vote Republican, that distinction means nothing to you, so you may as well skip ahead. With benefits for the aged like social security and Medicare, our society has minimized the cat food lady anecdotes; they still happen, of course, but they’re rare-ish. Scam targets tend to be moneyed old ladies living alone with wandering minds. There are thousands of these in the United States. The grifter’s job is to move in while posing as professional caregiver to earn the trust of the old person. When the grifter gets close enough, they separate fogie from benjis, collect the latter, and skip town.
Now, when the scam is really good, the grifter IS a legitimate care provider, like in today’s film. Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike) scouts vulnerable septa- and octo- genarians from doctor’s offices, then quickly files legal court proceedings making the vulnerable old lady –in this case Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest) –a ward of the state. The ward is then claimed and represented by –lo and behold- Marla Grayson(!) And all of this can occur without the old lady ever knowing there was even a court proceeding declaring her unable. Ain’t that a bitch?! Marla then puts Jennifer in a locked nursing home facility, legally deprives her of outside contact, and sets about liquidating her assets to pay for her own care (skimming in the process, of course).
Oh, but there’s a hiccup with this particular operation. Jennifer was supposed to be an unconnected old person (the best kind!), but she isn’t. She’s tied to the Russian mob led by Roman Lunyov (Peter Dinklage). Uh oh, Marla, you done screwed the wrong pooch.
The beauty of I Care a Lot is clearly not in the title. The title is stupid; we can all see that. No, the beauty of this picture is that Marla is so self-confident that she doesn’t back down from aggressive men, ever
, even if they are professional killers. The grifting game is like any other male-dominated business: you can’t bust the glass ceiling without knowing how to deal with self-important men. There are several good scenes in this film, but my favorite is when the mob lawyer (Chris Messina) takes on Marla one-on-one in an effort to bully his way into a Jennifer release. He knows she’s lying; she knows he’s lying. They both have weapons in reserve. They both play the game rather than give in to the volatility. She isn’t used to losing. Neither is he. This is why I watch movies.
The biggest problem with I Care a Lot is that it is impossible to root for either side. As a feminist, I love the way Marla doesn’t back from men who expect her to, but as somebody who cares about old folks, I need her to get her comeuppance all the same. Look, I don’t need to see her tortured or killed, but some jail time sure would be nice — you’re stealing the lives of old people and then robbing them blind. OTOH, who roots for gangsters? Is there some way they can both lose? That I’d like to see. This is an intelligent film and sometimes brutal in its matter-of-factness presenting the ABC’s of “this is how you take money from old people.” When I could distance myself from the film, I tended to enjoy it, even when I couldn’t find a person to champion.
It’s a mobster v grifter tale
In something of a protagonist fail
One has hits many
While the other robs granny
Would be great if they both went to jail
Rated R, 118 Minutes
Director: J Blakeson
Writer: J Blakeson
Genre: Grifter comeuppance
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Grifting enthusiasts
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Single old ladies
