Who is Marla?

Is Neglect I Take Care of You based on a true story? Well, not just one, but several.

Since its premiere on Netflix last Friday, February 19, I Care A Lot has caused a sensation as the most viewed content on the platform.

This tells the story of Marla Grayson, a professional con artist who has made a fortune tutoring helpless elderly people and stripping them of everything they have.

J Blakeson’s new film has been praised for its black humor, as well as for the tremendous performances of Rosamund Pike, Eiza González, Peter Dinklage and Dianne West.

But also, it turns out that Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you is more real than you think.

That’s why in this note we will tell you all the real events and characters that inspired her, including that of the real Marla Grayson.

What is I Care A Lot about?

As we mentioned, the plot follows Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike), a brilliant but heartless woman who is dedicated to obtaining custody of wealthy elderly people and then selling everything they have.

In this series of scams she has the help of Dr. Karen Amos, who provides her with confidential information about patients who may be perfect targets for Marla.

And Fran (Eiza González), his girlfriend, who is in charge of investigating the targeted old people and making sure that no loose ends are left.

Everything seems like a perfect plan until Marla becomes the guardian of Jennifer Peterson (Dianne West), a millionaire woman with no apparent family.

And we say apparently because Jennifer is none other than the mother of Roman Lunyov (Dinklage), former leader of the Russian mafia who is not very happy with his mother spending her days locked up in an asylum.

Is Neglect I Take Care of You based on real events?

The script for I Care A Lot was written from start to finish by J Blakeson and, although he did not take a particular story to create his film, he said that the idea came to him after hearing news about predator guardians.

People who, like Marla Grayson, specialize in legally flouting the law and taking away vulnerable people’s wealth, freedom, and even dignity.

“In Marla’s approach, a lot of things happen unfortunately. It’s true that there are a lot of these predatory guardians who prey on elderly and vulnerable people, and trap them in these guardianships and basically destroy their lives.

“The real life stories are horrible and heartbreaking, so unfortunately yes, it happens,” he told Collider.

The more he investigated, the more cases he found and then he thought about telling a story about it, but not from the role of the victim.

“Marla’s character and all the characters in real life seem a bit like gangsters to me. They come and take something under false intentions, they tear it apart and they get all the money they can.

So I took the idea from someone who is basically a legal gangster – because there’s nothing he does that’s against the law.

He (Roman) has violence, cruelty and criminality on his side, while she has the law, but how different are they? To have this yin and yang of immorality and put them in a fight to the death was a delicious proposition.”

The true story of Marla Grayson

Rosamund Pike also had her share of influence in the design of Marla Grayson’s character and was inspired by Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of Theranos.

Theranos was an American company dedicated to health and clinical laboratory technologies.

Among its many services was a portable diagnostic platform that performed clinical examinations from small blood samples.

However, this modality resulted in many failures, erroneous diagnoses and dangers for their clients. So many that her own employees accused her and her company of fraud.

Elizabeth and her ex-partner Ramesh Balwani were prosecuted in June 2018; but they were released after paying bail of 500 thousand dollars.

Currently the case against Theranos remains open and if found guilty, Holmes could spend between 18 to 21 years in prison.

For the film, Rosamund Pike explains that she was greatly inspired by Elizabeth Holmes’ TED Talks:

“I was curious about Elizabeth Holmes as a study in the art of convincing,” Pike explained to Vogue. “Particularly in the United States, people are seduced by wealth.

And money can cover up a lot of evil and many things that are done wrong. If you have a fortune, that is enough.

“If the ending of the movie hadn’t been what it was, in a couple of years Marla would have been on the cover of Forbes, she would have donated a tiny bit of money to charity, and all her money would be clean.”

Another story very similar to Marla Grayson was that of April Parks, a professional guardian from Clark County, Nevada who went to jail for misusing the money of the elderly under her guardianship.

Like the protagonist of I Care A Lot, April was responsible for draining the bank accounts of her charges and completely isolating them from their families.

Parks was arrested on March 8, 2017 in Pennsylvania and extradited to Las Vegas where she faced more than 200 charges of racketeering, theft, exploitation and perjury.

Two years later April Park was sentenced in 2019 and is currently still serving her sentence of more than 40 years in prison.

So there you have it, now you know the real story of I Care A Lot and you can enjoy it again on Netflix.