“I’m all for a movie where there are no sympathetic characters, and I Care A Lot goes out of its way to clear the board on that front, but the problem with the movie is that if you’re going with no sympathetic characters, putting the unsympathetic characters in totally deserved danger doesn’t really add much in terms of tension.
If she dies, she dies, to paraphrase a better and only slightly sillier movie.
I read an interview with the writer/director, who said he was going for a thing where the audience thinks they know what they want to happen to the main character, but then maybe THE AUDIENCE is the real monster for wanting that!
Which I don’t really buy. It only functions in the movie in the context of this one you messed with the wrong granny scenario. In the film’s reality, the character isn’t just bilking the olds out of their money, she’s robbing them of their lives, probably even decades of their lives, and she’s probably done it hundreds of times. The movie kind of tried to get us to forget that there are real people, who are totally innocent, being done a serious amount of harm by this one person.
With this particular Bad Grandma, we’re supposed to feel ambiguous because Peter Dinklage is obviously a horrid person as well, but it doesn’t fly. It’s like the feeling of the neighborhood bully getting his ass handed to him because he fucked with the wrong person: perhaps I’m not going to do that dirty work, but hearing that someone else did it doesn’t phase me.
Pike’s too cool attitude throughout doesn’t help. In essence, she says about herself if she dies, she dies, and doesn’t seem to care about her own life. I’m certainly not going to care about her life more than she does, movie.
I imagine a lot of folks are going to read this movie as American Psycho for the #girlboss set, and negative views of this movie will come off as a bit anti-lady. The pieces are there, the impeccable dress, the regular references to fitness. But for me, the difference is less about gender and more that A) Patrick Bateman isn’t all that clever, and B) I don’t think I was ever meant to be worried about Patrick Bateman’s safety so much as I was meant to worry about the safety of everyone around him.
What the characters share in common is the idea of taking the American dream to the extreme, where it breaks down. But I felt like I Care A Lot edged much closer to a place that asked me to sympathize with a character who was doing that, to see that character as a victim, to a greater extent, of a system that makes some people feel forced into doing terrible things.
And, I did feel like American Psycho gives us a look into a bizarre, awful person. I Care A Lot didn’t give us any insight into the person at all, I didn’t really know why or how she ticked, and I suspect there was just nothing there. Which makes the affair less compelling.
The movie also definitely flirts with that lifestyle porn problem that Hollywood seems to have, where every home and office we see is impeccable, the cars are worth more than I make in a year, and it’s like hitman movies: in movies, a hitman is a well-dressed, slick guy with a heart of gold. A young John Cusack. In real life, a hitman is a shitbag making a ridiculously small amount of money to kill someone, almost always someone’s current or ex spouse. They are not dudes who are totally awesome except they do this one fucked-up thing.
People doing this guardianship scam are not Rosamund Pike.
Also, cherry on top, the whole you’ve got moxie, kid setup is ripped right from an 80’s comedy, probably starring Jim Belushi, where Belushi comes into the boardroom, puts his feet up on the table, eats a hot dog, belches, and the President of the company is like This guy is amazing, make him the new VP immediately!”