‘GRETA’ Movie Review

In the 90’s, psychological thrillers featuring disturbed characters obsessing over another character were running amok thanks to the success of Fatal Attraction. Films like Single White Female, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and more created a new sub-genre that fizzled out for theatrical releases and became more of a specialty for the Lifetime channel. Director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, The Company of Wolves) contributes and tries to rekindle the fire once roaring over 20 years ago with Greta.

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Greta follows Frances (Chloë Grace Moretz) as a Boston woman imported into New York City and living with her roommate Erica (Maika Monroe). On the way home on the subway, Frances sees a handbag abandoned on a seat and decides to pick it up and look to see if it can be returned. After finding the address via ID, Frances returns the bag to her owner Greta (Isabelle Huppert) and starts to befriend her. Frances has recently lost her mother and Greta may or may not be filling the void on an emotional support level. It is soon revealed (within the first act) that Greta has purchased many bags and has possibly left her bag in various places to see if anyone will return them to her. Is Greta a sad widow who is looking for companionship or is there something more sinister?

After hearing many great things about Isabelle Huppert from Paul Verhoeven‘s Elle (and still needing to see it), I was anxious to see what she may bring to this film, which seems pretty straight forward. Greta, unfortunately, is a pretty barebones thriller that is somewhat elevated by Huppert and Moretz. It feels a bit disjointed in the fashion that Jordan was maybe trying to make something different but suppressed by some other source. While there are a few scenes that are pretty effective, the problem that this film has is that fans of psychological thrillers have seen this film many times over. The characters still go through the predictable tropes that will make audiences roll their eyes pretty hard. Huppert does try to inject some offbeat demented playfulness towards the end but it feels a bit too late to redeem all the familiar territory that we just experienced. Most sequences are laughably bad which is the opposite reaction that the film wants you to have with the final ten minutes being the worst of our character’s naivete. I do like how the film introduces you to something (withheld for spoilers) that will make you think back to when Frances brought the bag to Greta initially as it does kind of worm in your brain a little bit, but it gets lost amongst all the mediocrity.

GRETA is in theaters today.