Does Marla Pay the Ultimate Price for Her Crimes in ‘I Care a Lot’? (SPOILERS)

If you’ve seen I Care a Lot and need the ending explained — or if you haven’t seen the new Netflix film and wouldn’t mind having the ending spoiled — we’re spilling all below. So, after bilking helpless elders out of their savings, does Marla die?

Before we get into the spoilers, know that the last few minutes of the dark comedy have fans divided. “Man, that ending pissed me off so much,” one Reddit user wrote, while another called it “so unsatisfying.” A different commenter on the thread, however, said the ending “worked well towards what the movie wanted to say.”

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

In the film, written and directed by J Blakeson, Rosamund Pike plays Marla Grayson, a woman who talks her way into the legal guardianship of senior citizens just so she can sell their assets for her financial gain.

“It’s a dark comedy about the American dream, and a satire on the system of care in America,” the actress explained to Vogue recently. “Not all care is bad, but we do see the very unsavory side of elderly care being big business. I’m sure most care homes are run very responsibly, but I’m also sure there are people being cut in left, right, and center in others, money being siphoned off all over the place … Maybe the real villain of the piece is the system, which is set up for people like Marla to win.”

One of Marla’s victims is Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), who — as Marla learns too late — is the mother of Russian mobster Roman Lunyov (Peter Dinklage). Roman’s goons attack both Marla — drugging her and crashing her car into a lake — and her girlfriend, Fran (Eiza González) — assaulting her in Marla’s apartment. Marla regains consciousness just in time to escape the sinking vehicle, and she returns home just in time to save Fran from the explosion that the henchmen set up.

Marla tracks Roman down and drugs him, and by the time he wakes up in a hospital, a judge has appointed Marla as his legal guardian. She offers to free him and Jennifer for $10 million, but he has another idea: They go into business together.

At the very end, however, as Marla leaves a TV studio after an interview, the son of one of her other victims — a man viewers saw at the very beginning of the film as he fought Marla in court — confronts her and shoots her in the chest, and she dies in Fran’s arms.

“With her, you’re waiting to see if she would learn her lesson or meet her match and get scared. But I never wanted that to happen, even if it kills her,” J Blakeson told No Film School in a recent interview. “It’s hard not to admire that and at the same time not be horrified by it. I found that really interesting when writing the script. And the way Rosamund plays it by outwitting people all the time and having fun doing it — it’s that joy of being really good at something that draws you in.”