20 Best Movies Of 2021 (So Far)

After treading water for many years following the success of 2014's Gone Girl, Rosamund Pike is back with another killer performance in J Blakeson's black comedy I Care a Lot.

As a court-appointed legal guardian who uses her government-sponsored powers to defraud the elderly and infirm out of their homes and money, Pike is exceptionally well-cast.

Pike renders her character, Marla Grayson, as an ice bitch supreme who audiences immediately love-to-hate, and who they cross their fingers might finally get her well-deserved comeuppance at film's end.

Though slick and cutesy, there's a very real critique of society's treatment of the elderly at the film's core, best embodied by the primary object of Grayson's scheme, a surprisingly spiky woman played with tremendous relish by Dianne Wiest.

While Blakeson very nearly lets the story get away from him in the final stretch, this is more often than not a savage takedown of American capitalism.