At the beginning of the film, a narrator tells how people

in this world are divided into two kinds. One who takes and one who is taken. "Predators and prey. Lions and sheep, ”he said. She ended the opening with “My name is Marla Grayson, and I'm not a sheep. I am a lioness. "

Hearing that statement, I can at least recognize what our main character looks like. Marla (Rosamund Pike) is a con artist who works as a trustee who cheats the law into giving him permission to be guardian of the elderly, arguing that the old man cannot take care of himself anymore and needs help. He then put his patient (victim) into a nursing home, cut ties with all his acquaintances including family, and took over all the assets he owned. Both the house and the jewelery of each victim belonged to Marla. What a mess.

In  I Care a Lot , Marla is described as an  anti-hero  and I usually don't care about that kind of role. Sometimes it is the main character who has ambiguous morals to produce an intimate and terrifying story. But the longer I watched this film, the harder it felt for me to invest a speck of sympathy or emotion into it. Wait, I corrected, the greater the bad emotions that arise during this film.

Read Also : The cynicism called I CARE A LOT

Director and writer J Blakeson might want to make a satirical film about capitalism and how a system can harm society and Marla's story has drawn from concept. But what is the problem of this film is not how this film wants to make capitalism cynical, but how this film itself has been very cynical, especially from the main character, so it is difficult for me to support it.

Finally? I felt detached from the story. It was the middle of the film and I felt that it became increasingly difficult to follow the story not because of how badly the storyline went, but how there was no room for me to empathize with someone in it. All the satires that J Blakeson wanted to portray, whether from the figurative meaning of the story or from each of his characters, finally passed me by because of the tone of the film that was immersed in darkness and cynicism.

Rosamund Pike is perfect as Marla. Like her role in  Gone Girl , she plays a manipulative character with confidence so that I as the audience can really feel every emotion from her. That also makes me often feel angry with him, makes me annoyed with him. Not because of how badly Rosamund Pike played Marla, but because of how Marla explosively displayed all her cunning. Could it be how thinly Marla's character is written that I find it hard to feel relevant to her? I love the acting that Rosamund Pike has given, but I don't like the character Marla which ultimately makes me unable to support her even though she is the main character.

And that's unfortunate, considering how Marla actually managed to bring up all the themes brought by  I Care a Lot . As the film progresses, with the character we also see how he can always silence all who threaten him, even immediately threatening to tear the genitals of someone who says he is "Bitch". With Marla he actually has shown the power of a woman who is really cool. Unfortunately, its too dark nature often distracts us.

The point of excitement that I encounter maybe only in the middle of the film, when one of Marla's victims is the mother of a Roman mafia boss (Peter Dinklage). Roman, who has promised to meet his mother after buying donuts to eat together, ends up trying to get her out of the nursing home at any cost, and begins a game of chase between Marla and Roman, two equally sly thoughtful people.

Roman, just like Marla, is perfectly played by Peter Dinklage where we can see how he, like his character in  Game of Thrones , has managed to insert the character of a person who is calculating but can still show explosive emotions if his tactics fail. . But he also has the same character problems as Marla, he is a bad person.

Although it is interesting to see the two of them collide with cunning, it is difficult for me to keep up with them because of my difficulty in feeling relevant to both of them. I like Rosamund Pike and Peter Dinklage, but I don't like Marla and Roman. Finally, the film's story feels empty even though  I Care a Lot looks like a  delicious dark comedy thriller  with a tempo that always reveals something new as the narrative progresses. Although this film looks fun, it is difficult for me to find excitement in it and the complicated feeling makes it difficult for me to like this film.