Greta

Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Chloë Grace Moretz, Maika Monroe, Colm Feore, Zawe Ashton, Stephen Rea

Director: Neil Jordan

One day while traveling home on the train from work, Frances (Chloë Grace Moretz) discovers a purse that has been left behind. The ID inside says the purse belongs to Greta Hideg (Isabelle Huppert). Despite her best friend and roommate Erica's (Maika Monroe) warning, she returns the purse. Greta seems like a caring and gentle soul, talking about her deceased husband and daughter lovingly as she plays the piano. Frances, who lost her mother only a year prior, is taken to Greta's motherly qualities and befriends her. One night while having dinner together, Frances discovers a cabinet filled with purses that have been marked with other peoples names and phone numbers. Frances ends her relationship with Greta, who then begins to terrorize and invade Frances's life.

The prospect of a random act of kindness turning sinister is good fodder for a thriller, but the movie only works in fits and starts. This is a very frustrating movie to me, mostly because it fails to pick a tone. Is it campy or meant to be taken seriously? It tries to be both and the lack of commitment hurt my enjoyment of the film.

There is a problem when you start to question the logic of a movie and I found myself doing that quite a bit during the film. I, for instance, don't believe the cops would be so lackadaisical to not help Frances. Unlike most movies, she goes to the cops very quickly when things spiral out of control and Greta starts stalking her by standing across the street and staring at her while she works. At this point, the cop tells her that they can't do anything because she is on public property and isn't actually doing anything. Ok, sure that checks out. In the very next scene, Greta follows Erica and keeps taking pictures of their chase and sending them to Frances as it is occurring. That right there is enough evidence, but in the scene after that, Greta also shows up at Frances' work and causes a scene that results in the cops coming and Greta being restrained. In the next scene Greta is inexplicably released, despite the same cop being involved and having now seen that Frances' accusation is true. After this, the cops disappear from the story and do nothing to help Frances. Apologies for that long explanation but it was very frustrating to me.

Having an actress like Isabelle Huppert helps though and she does the best she can with her unsympathetic character. One of the reasons Alex Forrest works so well as a stalker in Fatal Attraction is that despite her doing some terrible things, she scores some slight sympathy points because Michael Douglas shouldn't have had the affair in the first place. You feel bad for her being led on. Greta is just flat out evil with no redeemable qualities. Huppert plays up Greta's escalating madness very well and once things shift into the tense third act, her talents really shine. Chloë Grace Moretz is fine but her character isn't given much personality outside of trying to be a Good Samaritan.

I'm sure some will find a demented enjoyment out of the film. Isabelle Huppert does her best but the poor writing and execution of the film lets her down.

D