Jefferson Krause

Like a lot of other reviewers, this movie made me angry at the filmmakers, so I was drawn to read the reviews to see if others agreed with me and to try to understand what made me so angry. Like many other people, I enjoyed the first half but was terribly disappointed by the second half. I was hoping that Dianne Wiest's character would be smart enough to out-con the con artist, and I was really looking forward to seeing that play out. Instead it just became a game of who's better at using violence to solve their problems. Like others have commented, her character just becomes an afterthought rather than a worthy opponent for Marla. Here's what I don't understand. Is there no other way to seek justice that doesn't involve using violence? For the son at the beginning who is barred from seeing his mother, how about contacting a newspaper? How about posting something on social media? How about finding an organization that advocates for family members of the elderly? Instead he only uses violence himself, but apparently that is the only conceivable choice according to these filmmakers. It seems that her entire scam was based on constantly ending up in front of the same clueless judge--at least they could have made him part of the scam and not just mysteriously taking her side despite person after person coming before him and saying she's ripping people off. The whole experience makes me want to get the script, re-write the second half, and make a decent film out of it!