Review of movie: "I care a lot" on Netflix in light of scriptures
Hello. Well, it’s been two years this month of writing this blog. Hopefully, I will continue to do so and that you will find it enjoyable. In the past few weeks I haven’t posted but have been gathering a lot of material. It is slow going.
Today I want to review this movie which is out on Netflix. It is called “I care a lot.” and was released in 2020. I don’t know why they added a period to the title. Seems kind of odd. If you want to see this movie I will probably have a few spoilers in it. So, read on if you don’t mind or come back later. The movie is about a woman, Marla Grayson, who runs an elderly care facility. She is ruthless and smart. Her strategy is to get the state to have a doctor declare a person unfit to live alone and then through court order become their legal guardian. When they enter her facility she takes everything they own and liquidates it for her own profit. She has a doctor who states they are unfit for self care and then goes to court. The state, through a judge’s order, appoints her as legal guardian over the ward. She is their state appointed guardian. She fleeces them of their homes, their retirement accounts, their savings and anything she can get her hands on because as she says “there are two types of people in the world, those who take and those who are took.” And she’s always looking for a “cherry.” This is someone who has a lot of money and no one who would care if they were gone. In other words, a rich person with no messy attachments. When she gets them into her care, she takes their cell phones and medicates them so they are basically living cash cows. She has a lover, Fran, who has a background in policing and together she and Fran make a super powerful, dishonest, ruthless lesbian duo, hell bent on taking what others have built in their lifetime. And according to the movie, it’s all legal. They don’t believe that if you play by the rules you will be rewarded. One must take if one wants to become rich and powerful.
Marla and Fran go to see Dr. Karen Amos who is the doctor that sends them new blood. Dr. Karen says she has a cherry. A single, retired woman, no kids, who worked in finance and has great assets. Fran confirms this through investigation and surveillance. In return, Dr. Karen wants stock that Marla owns. They agree. Dr. Karen issues a letter to the court. This cherry whose name is Jennifer Peterson isn’t present at the court hearing. What they are doing, while unseemly, is perfectly legal, so the movie states. They use the legal system to their full advantage. The judge who seems to be unaware of how Marla is bilking her wards agrees and places Jennifer under her care and appoints her as her legal guardian. Marla then goes to Jennifer’s beautiful home along with Fran and three police officers and they whisk Jennifer to their health care facility. Jennifer is in shock and gives up her cell phone and is placed in her room. Almost immediately after having Jennifer in her care she and Fran go the Jennifer’s house and turn it upside down. They go through everything. They gather all her information and put her home up for sale. While searching the home they find a safe deposit box key. Sometime later Marla goes to the bank and finds money and diamonds in her safe deposit box. This Jennifer is a true cherry.
About a week goes by and Fran is at the home directing painters and other workers on how to get the home ready for sale. A taxi driver knocks on the door and asks for Mrs. Peterson. Fran is confused and asks “Did someone call you?”. The taxi driver doesn’t answer but instead leaves and mutters to himself and appears to be very worried. We then learn that a mob boss, Roman Lunyov, is very angry with the taxi driver (who isn’t actually a taxi driver but part of the mob boss’ crew) and wants to know where Jennifer is located. Roman directs him to find out everything that is going on. They find out. As the movie continues, we see that Roman is actually the son of Jennifer Peterson and that Jennifer is not her real name, she too is Russian mafia. What then transpires is the mobsters attempt to get Mom out of the health care facility. They find this to be much harder than they expected. At this point I won’t tell much more of the story but only to say that Marla is portrayed as a “lioness” and she goes toe to toe with the mobsters.
Marla says in the movie “I used to be like you. Thinking that working hard and playing fair would lead to success, and happiness. It doesn't. Playing fair is a joke invented by rich people to keep the rest of us poor. And I've been poor. It doesn't agree with me. Cuz there's two types of people in the world: the people who take, and those gettin' took. Predators and prey. Lions and lambs.”
As to the movie’s quality and realness I give it a C- but to it’s entertainment value I give it a solid B. It was a fun watch. The mobsters are portrayed as inept while the lioness is portrayed as fearless and smart. In real life if this happened the mobsters wouldn’t take direct action right away but would instead watch and surveil until they knew which buttons to push and who to squeeze or kill. Instead, in the movie they rush in like bulls and even when they have Marla in their custody find a way to let her live.
I want to key in on the discussion between Marla and Roman that transpires when Roman kidnaps her and has her in his custody. They are in some sort of construction site and it is in the dead of night. Marla wakes up from the drugs used on her and is tied to a chair. Roman then begins to speak with her. He expected her to be scared but she is not. She appears unafraid. She regurgitates the atheists favorite apologetics on why to not be afraid of death. She posits as an atheist. She asks Roman in so many words if he was he horrified by the past world? She is unafraid of death because she doesn’t remember how bad it was in 1807 because she wasn’t alive. If they kill her now she won’t know anything and there is no need for fear. Being dead or pre-born is the same. We know nothing before we were born and we will no nothing after we die. There is a flaw in this reasoning. It is this: before we were born, we didn’t exist. After we are born, we exist. If we exist then it is possible that we possess a soul as we are taught. However, before existing there would be no reason to think we exist and therefore it would follow that we have no memory of past events. However, once we exist we cannot say with certainty that when we die we go back into that state that was before existence. The stronger point of the atheists argument is that our experiential nature is that we have senses that exist because we have a brain and body. Theses things can process the world and we can experience them. When our body dies we can no longer experience the world with our flesh so we can no longer make sense of the world around us. We no longer exist. I would liken it to if we created a robot which could process data and along with AI may seem to exist. If you destroy the parts then there is no robot that exists. It is as if were never there. I get that point of view, it is simple enough. However, we cannot with certainty say that when we die there is nothing left of us and we cannot say with certainty that there is an after life from a purely empirical point of view.
The reason I wanted to discuss this movie is it really has one or two things is propagating. One, that we humans are only matter, there is no after life. From this follows that in this world you have to be tough and take what is yours and there is no reason to be poor or to play by the rules. There are only those who take and those who are took.
I found it not coincidental that today’s Mass reading are as follows because I watched this movie last night and was thinking about these things and at Mass this morning I thought how there are no coincidences with God. He reveals to us who seek. And all this past week I have been reading Hobbes and thinking about the Leviathan and what are the answers to the questions we seek? Do we have inalienable rights or do we not? Is Hobbes right? Are we just matter and in need of a strong leader? I mean really… there is really nothing we can point to to say we have inalienable rights except that we are children of God. I know most think this is settled matter but if the presupposition that we have inalienable rights gets destroyed, and there are those seeking to destroy it, then what follows is that we are nasty, brutish people whose basest desires are in need of a strong despot to keep us in check. We don’t have to look far away or far into the past to see where a country went from relative freedom to despotic leadership. This usually comes on the heels of a revolution. And while thinking of these things, because I really want an answer, I stumble across this movie last night, then force myself to go to Mass which I was trying to talk myself out of, and get this wonderful reading, and think “God is good.” Yes, we do have inalienable rights because we have the dignity of God within us. We are created in His image. We are not wild beasts but persons who can soar to heights, such as those who have lived before us, Bach and Beethoven and Michelangelo. A beast cannot do that. Only the divine could do such things. We are not only matter! We are sons and daughters of our Father and what we inherit is His friendship. That is not nothing.
From today’s Mass reading, 1st Timothy 6:2-12
“Beloved:
Teach and urge these things.
Whoever teaches something different
and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ
and the religious teaching
is conceited, understanding nothing,
and has a morbid disposition for arguments and verbal disputes.
From these come envy, rivalry, insults, evil suspicions,
and mutual friction among people with corrupted minds,
who are deprived of the truth,
supposing religion to be a means of gain.
Indeed, religion with contentment is a great gain.
For we brought nothing into the world,
just as we shall not be able to take anything out of it.
If we have food and clothing, we shall be content with that.
Those who want to be rich are falling into temptation and into a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires,
which plunge them into ruin and destruction.
For the love of money is the root of all evils,
and some people in their desire for it have strayed from the faith
and have pierced themselves with many pains.
But you, man of God, avoid all this.
Instead, pursue righteousness, devotion,
faith, love, patience, and gentleness.
Compete well for the faith.
Lay hold of eternal life,
to which you were called when you made the noble confession
in the presence of many witnesses.”
From the Psalms in today’s readings 49:8-10
“Yet in no way can a man redeem himself,or pay his own ransom to God; Too high is the price to redeem one's life; he would never have enough to remain alive always and not see destruction.”
This is the debate. Are we only matter or do we contain within us the Spirit of God? If the former, then why not live as Marla lived? If the later, why would we live as she did?
I went in a lot of different directions, I know. I have a lot of loose ends, I know. However, this tension is one that seems to get played over and over again. I was thinking today about how Jesus said He came to bring not peace but the sword. To me this means that there is a time before Christ and after Christ. Two edges of the sword. On one side we have kingdoms such as the Greek kingdom under Alexander and he was a strong leader. His people were probably brutes and hedonistic and lived for today. However, they had no Christ so to them that was ok. They didn’t know better. We have Christ and the other side of the sword. We know better and have to life accordingly. The sword has cut the two periods in two. It cuts each of us as well. Each of us are now polarized and must choose. There is no not choosing. The sword will cut us one way or the other. The way of Marla which seems logical if there is no God or the way of Christ which seems illogical. Before Christ no one denied themself. But after Christ we are taught to deny our self.
From the gospel today from Luke, “Jesus journeyed from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God.”
We’ve heard the good news and now it is upon us to do two things or maybe three. We must obey which is to do the will of God and we must love which is to forgive and to give. These things cut through us like a sword because we don’t want to do them. We want the money, we want it now. Oh God.