The title of "I Care a Lot" is meant to be ironic, since the woman it's about, a professional ward and guardian for the elderly played by Rosamund Pike, uses her business as a way to bilk vulnerable people out of their assets. But it ended up being doubly ironic, because it also applies to the feelings I had watching it. Everyone in this movie is so vile that I didn't care about any of them.
Except for Dianne Wiest. I did care about her. She plays the mom of a Russian mafia boss and the latest victim of Pike's scheme, the one who sets the plot of the film in motion. Wiest is a sweetheart, and she was no nice to Kevin Bacon in "Footloose," and she has a brief moment where she puts Pike's character in a bad-ass chokehold, which is what I wanted to do to her, that she had me really rooting for her. I also found myself rooting for her son, the mafia boss, played by Peter Dinklage, and that tells you something right there about how morally vacuous this movie is. The Russian Mafia boss is the good guy. Let me repeat that. The Russian Mafia boss is the good guy. Ok, so he cares more about reclaiming some stolen diamonds than he does his stolen mom, but still. The terrible things he's probably done all happen offscreen, so we can pretend that he's basically nice.
Pike clearly has a ball with this role, and it's a huge testament to her abilities as an actress that she could make this movie even as watchable as it is. But I don't know what I was supposed to take away from this film. I felt extremely anxious and shaky watching it. I just wanted really bad things to happen to her and her partner because they're so deplorable. I wanted them to be tortured and killed, because people as awful as they are deserve to be punished for their awfulness. But I felt really bad being made to feel that way, and that's the only thing this movie made me feel.
The movie is pretty poorly written too, but it's so snappy and admittedly entertaining while in the middle of watching it that it's not obvious how poorly it's written until after you've had a chance to mull it over afterwards. I mean seriously, would a Russian Mafia boss (who, by the way, is the good guy, or did I already mention that?) be this inept at killing not one but two women who, no matter how smart and ruthless they might be, still have literally zero experience dealing with Russian Mafia bosses?
Rosamund Pike really needs to jump back into a period gown and do another Jane Austen movie where she gets to be gentle and sweet because otherwise I'm going to be too terrified of her to ever watch her in a movie again.
Grade: B-
