Aaaand just in time for Oscars season...I'm back! Took a hiatus to embark on new professional adventures (including a Flicker in Time coming to Amazon sometime soon) and to learn how to knit. Gotta complete the early grandmother trifecta of crochet-embroidery-knitting. My weirdly specific wish is that I could do fiber arts and pay full attention to TV shows at the same time. Sigh.
Dad and I are trying to see as many nominated films as we can fit into our weird working schedules as possible. Hot off a Best Actress in a Motion Picture-Musical/Comedy Golden Globe win, I Care A Lot (2020) flashed brightly at the top of our Netflix feed. Between peeking at the corners of the frame to guess what obscure corner of Boston the location managers loved and why, we puzzled out why this film isn't making as big of a splash as it promised.
ICYMI, I Care A Lot is the next femme fatale star vehicle for Rosamund Pike as Marla Grayson, a professional guardian for the elderly. Everything about her screams "killer" -- the skin-tight Technicolor wardrobe, stick-straight blonde hair, a sweet and curated disposition framing eyes searing with ambition and greed. While not based on a true story, Marla embodies the horrifying reality of predatory conservatorship. When a free spot opens up on her literal wall of old cash cows, she messes with the wrong octogenarian and their dangerous friends. The continuation of that sentence could be, "two ruthless cats fight over the same mouse in a thrilling chase that pushes Marla further than she thought possible...can she make her way back?" But the problem is, none of the characters here change. The film slaps you with Marla's cruel practices in the very first minutes, and while the stakes keep ramping up, nothing really surprises you. No self-reflections, no sudden pulls on anyone's morality. Even the secondary characters, like Marla's partner Fran (Elza Gonzales), don't provide much of a foil. It's a hell of a ride, a flash of fun romps through a violent, rich fantasy of girl-power, but by the fake-out ending, I just felt gross and didn't really care if anyone won.
And about Fran....this film doesn't market itself as such, but it's a mainstream LGBTQ film. And that's so great on so many levels! Marla and Frances are affectionate and sexual on camera; they are business partners who are bosses in their own right; and they support and challenge each other as equals (and look really damn good doing it all). And here’s where the competing tensions of what is wanted when it comes to representation on screen. Sometimes it’s really nice to have your community portrayed as just another element of the character -- we're just like you, but queer! -- and other times, it's really far more impactful for specific elements of the queer experience to really show up in the script, acting, and design. *Insert verrrry long tirade about getting folks of all identities above the line, below the line, in writers rooms and in critics circles.*
Both sets of wants absolutely make sense to me here. So what is I Care A Lot doing with their lesbian leads? Honestly, I don't think the screenwriters really know. Until, perhaps, the very last scene, where (SPOILERS) Marla and Fran sink into the Bury Your Gays trope, which I think was meant as shock and karma for straight audiences but really reads as far worse.
It's also pretty unclear whether I Care a Lot just throws lesbians, man-hating, and superficial girl-power into a mixing pot, pours it into a pair of stiletto's, and demands to be called modern feminism. PPCH brought this up and put it really well: in 2020 at the very least, how you use misogyny in your film matters, and when your woman villain is cornered by some heinous threats by a man, threats that no one deserves, but also she's a terrible person who did directly hurt this man without remorse, what are we supposed to do with that? It feels like a social commentary shoe-horn as sincere as Marla's smiles in the courtroom.
I Care a Lot is queer and cruel and fun, but ultimately directionless. I recommend it exclusively for style inspiration, so just check out the production stills.