From Whatever Happened to Baby Jane to Single White Female to Fatal Attraction, audiences seem to be unable to get enough of women losing their shit. While I find depictions of bunny boiling and hysterical screaming to be distasteful at best and downright offensive at worst, I found myself in the theatre watching Greta and moderately enjoying acclaimed veteran actress Isabella Huppert lure ingenue Chloe Grace Moretz into a game of cat-and-mouse by using the younger woman's own helpful nature against her.
Moretz plays Frances, a recent college graduate who moves into a lovely Tribeca loft with her wealthy friend from college, Erica (Maika Monroe, too talented for this role). When Frances sees a handbag left on the subway, she uses the owner's ID to find where she lives and return the bag in person. The bag's owner, Greta Hideg (Huppert) is an elegant, lonely woman in her 50s who lives in a cozy little apartment by herself. Frances and Greta bond over their losses--Greta's husband has passed and Frances lost her mother only a year ago. Frances convinces Greta to adopt a dog and the two women develop a friendship despite their age gap.
But...
Spoilers Spoilers Spoilers
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One evening Frances is making dinner with Greta and stumbles across a cabinet containing nearly a dozen handbags identical to the one she found on the subway, each with the name of the person who returned it along with their phone number. Confused and upset, Frances abruptly leaves...only to turn her phone on the next day and see dozens and dozens of missed calls, texts, and voicemails from Greta. The woman is officially off her rocker. Oh, also? The dog dies. Don't see this movie if you don't wanna see a dog die.
***
End spoilers (kinda)
While Greta is fun in a campy way, especially in its final third which is reminiscent of Takashi Miike's Audition in some very specific ways, it's still upsetting to see depictions of what is clearly mental illness be used to goose audiences into a fear response. Much is made of Greta's loneliness and she has legitimate reasons to be lonely. Her husband is dead, her daughter is mysteriously not in the picture, and she's an older woman living by herself who longs for company. But the film is not interested in exploring the nuances of loneliness and fucked up family dynamics--it just wants to show Chloe Grace Moretz tied to a bed with a gag in her mouth.
On the other hand, Greta shows the consequences of authority figures not taking stalking seriously, even when the stalker becomes more aggressive by the day. The film is realistic in showing how the burden is placed on the stalkee to keep themselves safe while the stalker can get away with any number of behaviors that cause mental distress to their victim.
But ultimately Greta, directed by Neil Jordon who has made his career in directing high art trash pics such as Interview with the Vampire and the notoriously transphobic film The Crying Game, isn't a film that cares about much more than getting the audience to scream in fear and glee. It's moderately entertaining, but otherwise an empty and jaded movie that reminds us that no good deed goes unpunished.
Grade: B-
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