Crime capers have always made great comedy, and I Care a Lot uses modern business to continue the tradition. This is the most fun and entertaining movie of the festival, and that’s thanks to its leader. J Blakeson has both written and directed the best work of his career.
The energy level is more fast and frantic than any other programmed film, and that adrenaline translates to the audience. This kind of film would have been more exciting in a packed theatre, but since we can’t see this in a cinema venue (yet!), living rooms will do for now.
What starts as a deceptively simple case of Marla (Rosamund Pike) running a business scamming senior citizens, under the guise of being their new legal guardian, goes well until one client's case goes horribly wrong. When she discovers who her new client really is, she concocts a plan to make things right…for her, at least.
Great stories have stakes continuously raising, and Marla’s efforts to outsmart the bad guys grows into a delirious finale I wouldn’t dare spoil. I’d love to describe how smart each scene is, but it’s worth you not knowing so you can enjoy the darkly comic surprises yourself.
The plot twists and crime tactics from both sides are delicious - Marla and foe Roman (Peter Dinklage) are great opponents as they duke it out over Jennifer Peterson's (Dianne Wiest) well being, because both are bad people doing bad things. Somehow, Pike’s Marla still has us rooting for her to find a plan clever enough
Blakeson has made a hysterically exciting fiction where the actors have such dizzying excitement you can't help but smile. This is an impressive effort from a director who, frankly, has a pretty forgettable filmography. (His last film, 2016’s The 5th Wave, was a notable flop critically and commercially.)
Still, what makes I Care a Lot the most fun to watch is Pike, Dinklage and the ensemble fight tooth and nail both through legal strategy and in classic crime enterprise slickness to win. And their director deserves credit for bringing them together.
Blakeson’s work echoes the runaway black comedy of Martin McDonaugh’s Three Billboards, Outside Ebbing Missouri. I Care a Lot doesn’t have the same nuance to its moral message, but it also doesn’t need to be.
Aside from a slower 15 minute section before the tantalizing finale, this is white knuckle excitement at its finest. This is one of the few TIFF films this year that could easily stand as a popcorn-munching big screen flick, and it’s well worth your time.
There’s no set release date yet in theatres for the title. But stay on the lookout - this is one worth you caring a lot about seeing it.
I Care a Lot
8 out of 10
Written and Directed by J Blakeson.
Starring Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinklage, Eiza González, Isiah Whitlock Jr. and Dianne Wiest.
Limited streaming now on TIFF’s Bell Digital Cinema with tickets available online here.
This review is part of Oakville News 12-part series covering the 45th Toronto International Film Festival. Read here about watching all 57 movies at this year’s TIFF. A full roundup of reviews from all movies at TIFF so far can be read here.
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