I Care a Lot
This would have been much more enjoyable if it wasn’t coated with a thick layer of satire and social commentary. As a thriller and a dark comedy, there’s a lot to love. Everyone is wonderfully cast, Marla’s act of defiance in the face of certain death is insanely entertaining, and the actual concept is genius. Still, the only way to actually praise the film is to agree to the terms it lays out, and the conceit it wants to plumb. Unfortunately it fails as both a critique of capitalism and as a dark and entertaining comedy. We live in an age where most filmmakers spoon feed us our morality and say the quiet parts loud and the loud parts loud. if you’re not going to commit your voice will get drowned out in the squall.
Rosamund Pike is always underutilized, and I have enjoyed watching her recently play psychopathic, cold blooded, blonde villains. If that is all she does for the rest of her life, I am honestly here for it. She recently won a Golden Globe award, and whatever your opinion on that, you can at least agree the woman can act. Actually everyone in this film is amazing, including Peter Dinlage, Dianne Weist, Alicia Witt, and the always underappreciated Chris Messina. The film is exceptionally well made, from its gritty soundtrack to its colorful and static cinematography, it looks and feels like a journey into polished barbarism.
That being said, this film doesn’t work. The character is Marla Grayson is satirizing girl bosses and their hypocritical stance on feminist issues, while they undermine feminism as a whole. A great example of this was Senator Sinema’s nay vote on increasing the minimum wage, though she voiced support in the past. (Pro tip: if your definition of progress for women is that they succeed in previously male spaces that work to denigrate and throttle other people, you don’t understand the true definition of equality.) In the process of trying to make this point, director J Blakeson missed his tonal mark, and half of the reviews I’ve read are criticizing the film for being pro-girl boss. In the end the film helped feed into the thing that it mocks, and for the most part was only great for those who believe that capitalism is made up of specific figures instead of a collective system.
I’m honestly really bumped that this film didn’t work as a whole. When Nightcralwer failed to get its deserved nominations in 2014 I was honestly very shocked, and hoped that a decent dark thriller would break through in subsequent years. “I Care a Lot” could have done that, and given Rosamund Pike another Best Actress nomination in the process. I hope we get more films about female rage and the resilience of women in male dominated spaces, I truly do. I would just hope that it’s handled better than this.
