I Care A Lot

   

 

Let me just start this review by saying, that this film made me so angry that it brought me back from a 5 year hiatus from writing reviews just so I could make a post about it. That is how much I hated it. 

(Spoiler Alert: This review is FULL of spoilers, so if you haven't seen the movie yet, skip this review!)

IMDb: 6.3/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 81%(critics), 34%(audience)

Director: J Blakeson

Writers: J Blakeson

Stars: Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinklage, Dianne Wiest, Eiza Gonzàlez, Chris Messina

Release Date: 19 February 2021

    I think that I feel so strongly about this because it started out very strongly for me. Within the first 10 minutes I was anxious, and on the edge of my seat, and angry about the absolutely vile things that Marla (Rosamund Pike) was doing to these helpless elderly people. Perhaps it hit home particularly hard for me because my grandma is currently in the early stages of dementia, so I can see how easy this could happen, thankfully I think it would be harder where I am living in Canada, because I know her doctors are doing everything possible to keep her in her home as long as possible, that is their priority, but still, f*ck Marla Grayson. I truly hated her in the beginning, and I think in the first 20-30 minutes I really felt like this could be an effective thriller.

    Seeing how quickly Jennifer Peterson's(Dianne Wiest) life turned completely upside down was, again, effective in how angry it made me feel, and I think they did a great job with the timing of dropping the twist that Jennifer Peterson isn't who they think she is. Now that I've finished the movie, I feel like its a twist and story that feels completely ridiculous but at the time I was thrilled to see Roman Lunyov(Peter Dinklage) in hopes that I would just get to witness Marla's slow painful death. Instead, they changed the tone of the story and tried to make us... sympathize with Marla, someone they had just spent the better part of an hour convincing us to hate. This is definitely the point where they started to lose me. Once Roman enters the picture, through absolutely no fault of Dinklage, the story starts to make a turn to the absurd, which in turn felt.. insulting to the truth that this story stems from. While in another situation I might have completely enjoyed the spy/mob/heist aspects and rivalry between Marla and Roman, it should have been a different movie.

    The beginning of this movie felt so promising, an incredibly effective, yet stunning, thriller about something that actually takes place in America, to our most vulnerable population, midway it turned to a generic kind of action film that in the end, didn't really make any commentary on what Marla was doing, besides the fact that it was financially profitable. 

    Then there's the ending, thankfully we do get Marla's death from a family member of one of her victims earlier in the film, but it did not feel satisfying for me at all. The twist with Roman where they go into business together, could have worked in that other pretend movie I've mentioned a couple of times, I think it could've been a fun twist, but here? Again, it just felt so deeply unsatisfying after the journey we just took. Her death changes nothing, millions of seniors are now having their lives stolen from the across the country by some mega corporation started by this absolutely evil human. I'm not against a movie where no one is the hero, but it felt insulting that the filmmakers attempted to humanize and soften our opinion of this horrible, evil, woman.

    Coming out of this film, what I'd love to see is a based on a true story version, where we see how it plays out in a real life situation. I've read about them so I know they exist. I thought Rosamund Pike and Peter Dinklage had great chemistry so I would have loved to see their dynamic in a situation that felt more... appropriate. There was also really not nearly enough of Dianne Wiest for my taste, because I really felt like she did a fantastic job in the scenes where we do see her.

My final thoughts on this film? Hated it. I can see in the comments on Rotten Tomato's instagram that many, many people disagree with me and loved it, so maybe you will too. It's nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress In A Motion Picture for Rosamund Pike, yea sure, she was fine but we've seen her give this performance before so, not sure its Golden Globe worthy, but I'm not going to put up a fight about it. Right after watching last night I went to IMDb to see what others thought and at first I thought "I'll give it a 5/10, I did enjoy the beginning", but in the end, it's going to have to be a 3/10 for me for all of the reasons I gave above. Watch at your own risk of spending the weekend thinking about how angry you are about it. It is available on Amazon Prime in Canada and I believe the UK, and on Netflix in the US.