Greta

Greta

Starring Isabelle Huppert, Chloe Grace Moretz, Maika Monroe, Colm Feore

Directed by Neil Jordan

The Story:
After loosing her mother, Frances (Chloe Grace Moretz) lives in New York City with her best friend Erica (Maika Monroe), and pretty much sees the world through rose-colored glasses.  When she finds an abandoned purse on the subway, she returns it to its owner, Greta Hideg (Isabelle Huppert), a single older woman.  The two begin a friendship, and Frances looks to Greta as sort of a new mother figure - until she finds other handbags in Greta's apartment, discovering that she's been baiting people for a long time.

She ends her friendship with Greta, but she won't end her friendship with Frances.  Greta begins stalking Frances and her friends, and escalates her taunts and terror as Frances tries to understand Greta's mindset before Greta totally destroys her life.

The Synopsis:
There's a famous saying: "No good deed goes unpunished."  Basically it means bad things often happen when you try to do something good, and "Greta" is that idea personified.  Directed and co-written by "The Crying Game" director Neil Jordan, "Greta" is a throwback to the noir thrillers of the 80s and 90s that focus on a deadly cat-and-mouse game between two people, but here it's a bit different: here it's not a jilted lover going after her (or his) now-ex, but rather a multi-generational friendship that far exceeds the realms of normalcy and enters a "Fatal Attraction"-esque world.

When naive Frances finds an abandoned handbag on the subway, she foregoes all sense of logic (even her roommate Erica told her she should've called the bomb squad, something that pretty much anyone in their most logical thinking would've done) and returns it to its owner, a widowed lonely older woman named Greta.  At first the two strike up a friendship due to Greta loosing her husband and Frances loosing her mother, and the two spend a lot of time together, enjoying each others' company.  Then Frances discovers a cabinet full of similar handbags, and learns that Greta's been purposefully leaving them on subways in hopes of having them returned to make new friends.  This causes Frances to cut ties with Greta, but she won't give up that easily.  She begins stalking Frances and her roommate Erica, harassing them and forcing Frances to live in fear, as she constantly watches her back to see what Greta would do to her next.

With a film of this style, the success or failure of it lies solely in its main leads, and this is the real strength of the film.  Isabelle Huppert is a mostly unknown name to American audiences (apart from earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her work in "Elle" two years ago), but in her native France, she's an acclaimed actress who's been performing since the 1970s.  She showcases extreme brilliance, nuance, grace, and vulnerability in her role, which is what makes Greta so utterly terrifying - you might think it'd be easy to subdue such an elderly woman, but she's like the Terminator: she keeps coming back.  Seeing how she changes from a sweet woman to a vengeful, spiteful, truly insane person, Huppert owns the screen and really makes her performance all the more believable.

Likewise, Chloe Grace Moretz gives her all as the mild-mannered Frances, a girl that's way too trusting for her own good, and someone who's the perfect fodder for such an insane personality as Greta.  Moretz gives Frances a youthful innocence throughout in a way that's purely innocent but also incredibly naive, a character who seemingly can't stand up for herself and who basically serves as a welcome mat for anyone to walk over, especially Greta.  Both characters hit the opposite ends of the spectrum, as we see pure good going up against pure evil in purely basic ways.

While the stars shine in this film, I couldn't help but think it was a bit stretched - even at a scant 98 minutes, it still felt like it dragged on in parts.  It would've been better if it had been more established, or if it was written as a short film than a feature-length one.  Yet even then, there's several questions that were left unanswered, and a moment in the film that really doesn't make sense when you connect it as a whole, which I was wondering why it was included in the first place.  Still, despite this, the film is heightened by its lead actors and the set designs (especially Greta's home, which is an odd blend of classic architecture and torture chamber), and gives a thrilling cat-and-mouse game that'll leave you on the edge of your seat.

The Summary:
With two acclaimed actresses at the helm, "Greta" is a fantastic throwback cat-and-mouse noir thriller that showcases a natural battle between good and evil not in superhero ways, but in ways that hit much closer to home - because it's something that could actually happen.

The Score: A-