You can easily see why I CARE A LOT has been a divisive film. One ever-reliable truism to fall back on when talking about what makes a compelling film is that a protagonist doesn’t have to be likeable but they do have to be interesting. Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike) is awful, but she is fascinating. She has an evil-genius hustle of taking advantage of rich elderly people without relatives, until she makes the costly mistake of targeting Mrs Peterson (Dianne Wiest) and in doing so attracts the attention of a Russian mobster (Peter Dinklage). The film moves at a pace, is crisply directed and J Blakeson’s screenplay provides plenty of acerbic exchanges that make the most of Pike’s strengths, particularly in a delicious battle of wits and veiled threats between Marla and Chris Messina’s mob lawyer. When the plot goes for broke any kind of dark social commentary is lost in the chaos, but Pike still sells the whole thing admirably. SSP