Pike’s black-hearted Marla drains the bank accounts of well-off elderly patients, until she picks the wrong prey
A sulphur-whiff of evil rises from this exquisitely nasty and horribly watchable thriller from writer-director J Blakeson, whose debut movie The Disappearance of Alice Creed 12 years ago gave us all grounds for predicting great things. And Rosamund Pike is tremendous, giving us her most outrageous Hitchcock-blonde turn since Gone Girl.Pike offers a window display of pure predatory wickedness, lighting up the screen with her sociopath haircut, shades and fashion-plate outfits, like Nurse Ratched’s aspirational granddaughter. She is also vaping – always the sign of a screen villain. Although I can’t help wishing Blakeson could have given Pike’s co-star Dianne Wiest more to do in the final act, it is grisly and gleefully cynical entertainment. If Ben Jonson directed films, they would be like this.
Pike plays Marla Grayson, a ruthless woman who, with her assistant-lover Fran (Eiza González), is exploiting a goldmine of neglect. Elder abuse and the fear of dementia are growth industries, and this movie hits on the most painful subject of all: not being able to see your mum or dad in a care home. Marla bribes doctors to give phoney dementia diagnoses for well-off elderly patients with no family members in the picture. The doctor applies for an emergency court order to have this now terrified old person placed under the tender care of Marla, as a state-appointed guardian with discretionary charge of that person’s finances. While the aged victim is sedated and imprisoned in a care home, with no visitors allowed, Marla is entitled to drain their bank account and sell their assets to pay the inflated bills charged by the care home in which she owns shares – and she also takes a handsome fee. One day, Marla lands what she thinks is a juicy, tame fish: wealthy Mrs Peterson, marvellously played by Wiest. But Marla doesn’t realise Mrs Peterson has connections with a vindictive
Russian mafioso, played by Peter Dinklage.