Page 4 - Hawaii Island MidWeek - March 17, 2021
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4 HAWAI‘I ISLAND MIDWEEK MARCH 17, 2021
Rotten
When You ‘Care,’ But Not Enough
BY CHRIS MCKINNEY
PAPAYAS
Conventional wisdom says that it’s tough to sell a story with
film about a sports agent who becomes a better man, I Care a Lot opens with a slick voiceover. But Marla Grayson, a con woman who convinces the judicial sys- tem to force elderly victims under her legal guardianship, has no interest in being good. She’s singularly focused on ripping off seniors after she locks them up in care homes. There’s a lot of “lion or lamb” blah-blah-blah in her justifi- cation for destroying the lives of old people. And, when she bilks the wrong woman and has her committed to a care facility, Grayson becomes an even bigger uncompromising
opportunist. I would say she’s losing her soul if she had one to begin with.
the wrong old lady. Her son, played by Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones), is a sort of vague organized crime figure, who is never really fleshed out over the course of the film. But like Pike and Wiest, he has his moments.
Watching I Care a Lot is like staring at flashy pond scum. Nice cars, offices and beauti- ful people can’t trick my eyes into disguising what I’m really looking at.
an unlikable main character. Writers occasionally test this notion with mixed results. Classic successes include Lolita and A Good Man Is Hard to Find. In film, Martin Scorsese is the master of sell- ing the story with an unlik- able protagonist: Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and The Wolf of Wall Street are good exam- ples. Recently, Netflix tested conventional wisdom with its new film, I Care a Lot.
The performances here are solid. Rosamund Pike (Jack Reacher, Gone Girl) plays Grayson, and she does so well. I don’t remember ever seeing a bad Pike perfor- mance. The same can be said of Dianne Wiest (Footloose, Parenthood, The Birdcage), who has built an impressive career playing likable wom- en. In this film, Wiest plays the victim, but she adds a sinisterness to the woman she plays. She delights in the fact that Grayson is about to find out she messed with
Unfortunately, the moments aren’t enough to compensate for what, in the end, is a rather silly film. I don’t need a story to have a moral in order to like it. I don’t need protagonist growth. In fact, some of my favorite stories are about an individu- al’s ugly spiral into evil (Mac- beth, The Godfather).
I suppose thematically, this film is half-heartedly attempt- ing to say something about how poorly America treats its elderly and vulnerable; how the insatiable quest for wealth can lead to bad things. But theme in this movie feels like an afterthought — a sort of, well, we-need-to-spoon- feed-the-viewer-something- thought-provoking notion. It’s not nearly enough to spackle over the fact that we never re-
Rosamund Pike (left) and Dianne Wiest star in the film I Care a Lot. PHOTO COURTESY SEACIA PAVAO/ NETFLIX VIA AP
ICareaLotislikeabi- zarro Jerry Maguire. Sim- ilar to Cameron Crowe’s
Grayson does not grow or spiral. She’s a flat character.
I Care a Lot might have worked if it committed itself to being purely dark. Instead, it looks like a film pretending to know what true evil is.
ally get to know these charac- ters. That many of the dramatic moments are implausible.
chrismckinney808@gmail.com
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