Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Writer/director: J Blakeson, Amazon Prime.
Caring takes on a whole new meaning as it turns destructive. It’s a satiric look at outcomes after a court-appointed legal guardian defrauds her older clients and traps them under her care.
This black comedy sees Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl) a professional, who confiscates the assets of those in her care and sneakily swindles through ambiguous, but legal means.
It’s a smooth functioning racket that Marla and her business partner and lover Fran (Eiza González, Baby Driver) use with wicked competence on their latest “cherry” — Jennifer Peterson (Oscar-winner Dianne Wiest, Hannah and Her Sisters, Bullets over Broadway) — a wealthy retiree with no living heirs or family. Wiest is marvellous in the role as Mrs Peterson.
They swindle from the elderly for personal gain, but the tables turn on them after they mess with the wrong retiree who has an equally shady secret of her own with connections to a malicious Russian gangster (Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones).
Marla is forced to level up in a game only predators can play — one that’s neither fair, nor square. Marla bribes doctors to give phoney dementia diagnoses for well-off elderly patients who have no family members.
The doctor seeks an emergency order so the scared old person can be placed under the care of the state-appointed guardian, who has discretionary charge of the person’s finances. With no visitors allowed, the victim is sedated and imprisoned in a care home, Marla is allowed to drain their bank account and sell their assets to pay the overblown bills charged by the care home. She also has shares in the home and takes a handsome fee.
A gold mine of neglect exists and Marla and Fran are good at misusing it. Elder abuse and the fear of dementia are growth industries, and this movie hits on the most distressing subject of all: not being able to see your parents placed in a care home.
