I Care A Lot: Amazon Prime Movie Review

Cast: Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinklage, Dianne Wiest, Eiza Gonzalez

Director: J Blakeson

UK director J Blakeson's twisty and twisted I Care A Lot doesn't populate its 2 hour with very nice people.

And in the case of this stylised and sleek film, that's probably no bad thing.

Pike is Marla Grayson, a self-appointed Guardian of the elderly, who essentially uses her position to scam them out of their possessions, and leaves them locked in nursing homes, with no access to family or the outside world.

When Marla is approached by a crooked client telling of a "cherry", an elderly patient with no relatives or contacts, she senses an easy scam. As Marla targets Jennifer Petersen (Wiest, in an all too brief role), she believes this grift is a simple one. However, Marla's mission is anything but...

With a laser-precision bob, icy stare and pinched cheekbones, Pike is effortless as Grayson in this thriller that twists more often than it stays on the straight and narrow. Her pristine stylings on screen set the tone in Blakeson's film, which mostly stays the course (it's perhaps a little overlong in the final furlong) and keeps you horrifically engaged. 

There's a sickening superficiality here too that may keep you at arm's length (character history and motivation is not what Blakeson wants to indulge his script in), but thanks to Pike and some choice cuts of dialogue and voiceover, you're already clued into this warped American dream within the opening moments.

The best thing about I Care A Lot is not knowing where the journey is heading - and it's invariably better kept that way. Blakeson fills his screenplay with mostly irreputable lowlifes, but somehow manages to make you turn that scorn into sheer hope that Marla and her partner Fran (Baby Driver's Gonzalez) will survive what they've chanced upon. It's a masterful stroke, brought vividly to life by the central players.

Dinklage also deserves praise for his role, the details of which are too spoilery, but there's a simmering tension whenever he's on screen, mostly led by the work done by his eyes and what lies within. Special mention also needs to go to Chris Messina, a lawyer who has as many moments on screen as there are button holes in his tailored suits, but who makes the absolute most of every single word, and every delicious implication thereof.

If Blakeson's film is supposed to be a searing salutation of the anti-hero, it manages it well. The production values of the film give it a stylised yet unnerving look that's hard to shake, a Stepford Wives feel permeating parts of the care home and some of the cutaway scenes to maximum effect.

Overall, I Care A Lot will surprise you with how much you actually do care for these hateful and spiteful characters (clue: it's a lot) as the immorality tale plays out. It may have chosen to leave humanity on the cutting room floor of the scripting room, but I Care A Lot, with its seething venom the antidote to anything engaging, makes it a savagely intriguing thriller that grips as much as it appals.

I Care A Lot starts streaming on Amazon Prime Video on February 19.