The top film on Netflix this past week is “I Care a Lot.” If you haven’t seen it, stop reading this and go watch it to save yourself some spoilers.

The film revolves around a woman, Marla, who exploits elderly people by playing the role of a legal guardian to them. Marla uses many shady but loosely legal practices to play her games with these elderly people. She steals their money, assets and lives. Her goal is to become rich by seemingly any unethical way possible.

After becoming the legal guardian to a woman with Russian mafia ties, Marla’s life becomes endangered. As the film goes on, you see a battle of two evils with no one to really root for or against.

There are multiple twists in the movie and a surprising, bittersweet ending filled with what could be considered justice.

The film has an underlying message that is demonstrated through Marla’s character. Her character is quite complicated. On one hand, you might respect Marla in some ways. She’s a woman in a man’s world who is incredibly independent, fierce and determined. That’s the only good in her though. On the other hand, she is greedy and arguably evil.

Marla’s character is the epitome of capitalism, especially in America. She is completely driven by money and material wealth. She lives for the American dream. The same dream that has been previously pushed on society for many decades. Luckily, the American dream has been dying off within the last couple of decades.

I say luckily because the American dream is incredibly toxic. The idea that money should be your goal in life and that it is above everything else, is materialistic and only further pushes capitalism. It’s stepping on the little man to have a gross wealth and power status while the little man still struggles.

Going back to Marla, she is taking advantage of the elderly people to gain this power and wealth. This doesn’t seem extremely off from the truth. There are so many examples of people who are vulnerable being exploited by the wealthy. Think about people who have diabetes and can’t afford to buy insulin because these wealthy, powerful pharmaceutical companies are profiting so much from their illness.

There are so many Americans who are struggling with an illness that they can’t afford to treat because of this very reason. I could go on and on about more examples of how evil capitalism is.

At the end of the movie, Marla asks herself, “Am I a lamb? Or am I a lion?” Are you a lamb or are you a lion?

Gillian Eubanks is a junior health communication major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or gdeubanks@eiu.edu.