In this Netflix original’s initial 20 minutes, writer/director J Blakeson and star Rosamund Pike craft one of cinema’s all-time, audaciously evil characters.
Pike’s Marla Grayson isn’t merely malevolent; she’s smug, self-satisfied, shark-like and insufferably condescending. Think Louise Fletcher’s Nurse Ratched, from 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but with naked avarice and ambition added to the mix.
Dragged from her home by the force of a court order, Jennifer (Dianne Wiest, center)
becomes increasingly suspicious of the "benevolent" attitude displayed by Fran
(Eiza González, left) and Marla (Rosamund Pike).
Marla’s plastic smile is so insincere, so unbearably patronizing, that you want to reach into the screen and throttle her.
She’s one of the best-scripted villains ever concocted, and Pike brings her to terrifying life. Every little detail — every nuanced bit of dialogue, every self-righteous smirk — is exquisitely calculated.
Marla’s behavior — her very existence — is nightmarish. We pray never to encounter her like, in real life.
She unapologetically reveals her moral bankruptcy early on, via voice-over. “There are two kinds of people in this world,” she insists, matter-of-factly, “those who take … and those who get took.”
Marla has built an appallingly successful career as a professional, court-appointed guardian for dozens of elderly wards deemed “incapable of caring for themselves,” and therefore railroaded into managed-care facilities. Once barricaded and helpless behind locked glass doors, Marla and her business partner/lover Fran (Eiza González) seize, strip and sell each victim’s assets via dubious but wholly legal means.
As the film begins, the son of one such casualty — Macon Blair, as the hapless and frustrated Feldstrom — understandably goes berserk when he’s refused access to his elderly mother. It’s a disastrous move, which the oh-so-cool-and-collected Marla later references before court Judge Lomax (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), since it proves that Feldstrom poses a “clear and present danger” to his mother.
It only gets worse.
Marla has two additional key players on her corrupt payroll: smarmy Sam Rice (Damian Young), director of her favorite managed-care prison, who’ll adjust meds and treatment to her desires; and chirpy Dr. Amos (Alicia Witt), who proposes likely candidates from her patient roster.
Her newest suggestion is Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), a wealthy retiree who lives alone and is without family: therefore a “cherry,” in Marla’s cold analysis.
One short meeting before Judge Lomax later — without Jennifer being present — Marla has the elderly woman declared incompetent. The next day, Marla and Fran show up with a court order and several officers in tow, remove the understandably bewildered Jennifer from her home, and get her locked into one of the nicest rooms under Sam’s watchful eye.
Then Marla and Fran begin to remove everything within Jennifer’s tastefully cute and attractively appointed home. Depending on how you feel about possessions gathered over a lifetime, this is just as hard to watch, as Jennifer’s incarceration. (Credit production designer Michael Grasley, for doing such a fine job with Jennifer’s home.)
Evil. Evil. EVIL.
(While this couldn’t happen in California — where anybody suspected of being so frail must themselves be present in court, accompanied by an attorney, so the judge can make an informed assessment — that isn’t a federal mandate. Laws vary, state by state. So if you think Blakeson’s premise is preposterous, I encourage you to investigate former Nevada legal guardian April Parks, and her treatment of Rudy and Rennie North.)
Our hearts break, as Wiest — radiating vulnerability — so persuasively slides from bewilderment to anger, and then fear. Jennifer is well and truly helpless, locked within this horrible place, her smart phone confiscated … and, soon, subjected to an increasingly heavy drug regimen to “help keep her calm.” She’s the ultimate powerless casualty.
At about this point, you might be tempted to bail; Blakeson’s savagely unyielding narrative feels too real, too genuinely cruel, too horrifying.
But wait.
As Fran oversees the meticulous stripping of Jennifer’s home, a taxi pulls up; the driver, Alexi (Nicholas Logan), clearly is surprised by what he’s seeing. Told that he’s here to collect Jennifer, Fran officiously replies, “She doesn’t live here any more.”
Confusion morphs into unease (we wonder why) as Alexi brings this fact back to his boss: posh Roman Lunyov, played with marvelous, barely restrained ferocity by Peter Dinklage.
Who, clearly, has some sort of link to Jennifer Peterson. And isn’t about to let this rest.
And because we hate Marla, so much, we’re perfectly willing to root for this guy, even as it becomes plain that he’s a ruthlessly lethal Russian mobster.
The mere fact that we have this reaction — so gleefully orchestrated by Blakeson — adds the snarky touch that allows this film to be branded a “comedy crime thriller.” (We sure haven’t seen anything remotely amusing up to this point.)
Because while most people would fold their tents and scarper when confronted by a mob kingpin, Marla isn’t about to surrender. In part, this springs from vanity; in greater part — and Pike adds bitter, spiteful fury to this detail, when queried by the more prudently cautious Fran — it’s because Marla refuses to yield to a man. Ever.
Thus the battle lines are drawn…
Dinklage is as captivatingly menacing, as Pike is quietly conniving. Despite being surrounded by the aristocratic trappings that ill-gotten wealth can provide, Lunyov struggles to control the temper that undoubtedly fueled his rise to the top. Watch Dinklage’s eyes at one point — the way they roll and flash — when Lunyov is given another bit of bad news.
Dinklage frequently pauses and catches his breath before speaking, striving to articulate his rising fury, rather than grabbing the nearest hammer and breaking fingers. We can’t help but laugh … if rather nervously.
González oozes carnality as the Fran, whose voluptuous hold on Marla is reciprocal. These two clearly adore each other; more significantly, they respect each other, and function as a well-oiled machine. That said, Fran — to her benefit — lacks Marla’s stubborn refusal to surrender; she’s far more aware of her own mortality.
Logan slides just this side of comic relief as the frequently nervous Alexi: a loyal foot soldier, but several cards short of a full deck. Chris Messina also is a hoot as the smarmy Dean Ericson, Lunyov’s pet attorney: a smooth-talking operator who clearly believes in his own supremacy … and never considers the possibility of being out-played.
It has oft been acknowledged that villains get the best lines, and that’s certainly true here. Watching Marla and Lunyov attempt to out-maneuver each other is deviously nasty fun, particularly as Blakeson relentlessly stokes our thirst for revenge.
In this case, it definitely ain’t a dish served cold.
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