Greta (Review)

Greta Reminds Us that Stalkers are Awful.

Greta is one of those films that reminds us that crazy comes in all shapes and sizes out there. Typical stalker movies typically have the hero followed by some scorned lover who can’t grasp the understanding of boundaries, but every once in a while a movie gets that love has nothing to do with obsession. In that regards, Greta hits the nail on the head with a spine chilling performance from Isabelle Huppert as the titular psycho who is looking to fill the loneliness in her life with a surrogate daughter. However, Greta turns out to be a little too obsessed with, well, Greta, and while it manages to have some pretty intense moments, it never manages to become a truly great thriller.

I’ve always been a relatively big fan of Chloë Grace Moretz over the years. She certainly proved to be a child actor willing to take on roles that pushed her over the years. However, she’s hardly a child anymore and with the recent Suspiria and now Greta she’s starting to define herself as a young woman on the big screen. However, there lies one of my biggest issues with Greta in that Moretz performance in the film feels… Off. I’m not sure if it’s her in the role or the script co-written by Ray Wright and director Neil Jordan, but her character Frances seems unnatural, but perhaps that what makes her the perfect victim for the ill-intentioned Greta. Still, I feel as though there are enough stalker related movies and series out there that the sort of mind-numbing mistakes that Frances makes throughout the film are inexcusable at this point. Then again, I’ve also found myself saying over the years that stupidity tends to be the cornerstone of horror.

Frances meets Greta after returning her lost handbag to the old woman. An act of kindness which in itself is more than a little strange considering she could have dropped it off at any Police Station and had them take care of it. Still, Frances is bound and determined to do the right thing and ends up on Greta’s doorstep. It’s at this point that Greta’s greatest flaw starts to become more and more evident over the course of the film, which is that none of the movies plot points makes any sense. Frances is stalked and harassed at every turn and the police completely shrug it off and don’t even seem to issue a warning to the woman. That’s fair, given the number of stories out there about how worthless the police tend to be. However, not even her manager at the fancy restaurant she works for wants to slap a trespass on the woman in order to keep their employee safe (or even cover their ass from a potential lawsuit). The film is filled with moments where it was clear that bad decisions are being made only to push the plot forward. Because of this, Greta just feels wrong and I don’t mean that in the good sense of dread way that so many thrillers do.

Of course, it’s not just the decisions that feel wrong in Greta. Maika Monroe plays Mortez character’s roommate and is the kind of girl I just can’t see Frances getting along with. Of course, she also constantly offers terrible advice to her roommate and seems completely self-centered throughout the entire ordeal. Then again, all of the characters except for Greta seem one dimensional, which doesn’t do a whole lot when it comes to trying to identify with the victim. This impacts the performance from Moretz making it one of the weakest I’ve ever seen from her over the years. In fact, it’s downright off-putting at times. Then again, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for characters who go to their stalker’s home to rifle through their trash in order to find evidence to take to the police. That though is exactly the kind of crap you can expect from Frances in the film.

There’s a lot wrong with Greta. However, I do have to give it some credit for coming up with a fairly unusual spin on the stalker genre. People tend not to suspect older women of being monsters, though anyone who has worked in customer service might disagree. Because of this, it’s hard to know just what to expect from Isabelle Huppert as she slowly reveals her character’s true colors. I’ll admit that she was enthralling in her performance, but isn’t enough to make Greta a great thriller. However, I will say that she saves it from disaster and ends up making it a pretty tolerable film in the end.

Greta is, unfortunately, a fairly forgettable film but it’s not entirely a regrettable one. It plays with the notion that there is no replacing the loved ones that we’ve lost over the years and to do so will only bring more suffering. It does so with a heavy hand and little attention to logic and details though. The idea and the intention might manage to shine through, but the overall execution leaves much to be desired, which is a shame given how much I was looking forward to a twisted thriller this month. Instead, what I got was a mediocre film with moments of shock to break up the monotony of it all.