Neil Jordan’s latest film, Greta, stars Chloe Grace Moretz and Isabelle Huppert as the titular character. A young woman named Frances who lives in Manhattan finds a lost handbag in the subway and returns it to the owner. They start a friendship, which quickly sours when the chance encounter turns out to be deliberate.
Jordan is a solid filmmaker. His work ranges from solidly entertaining (Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, The End of the Affair), to bio pics (Michael Collins), from iconic (The Crying Game) to surreally haunting and beautiful (The Company of Wolves, Byzantium, Ondine). Even his failures are kind of memorable (In Dreams and The Brave One). Unfortunately Greta feels more like a rough draft than a complete film.
Greta teases a lot of intriguing themes: subverting gender norms and expectations, the inadequacy of law enforcement in the face of stalking, the mother daughter missing their other half, the value of friendship, the oneiric quality introduced late in the film, the legacy of historic trauma on individual lives and how it plays out in the new world, challenges of a workplace when it clashes with the personal. All of them are undeveloped and never feel fully fleshed out. It feels as if Jordan had all these great ideas, but didn’t spend enough time either revising the script or in the editing room. I wish that he had just focused on one theme and fully explored that theme in the context of a stalker thriller.
The characters in Greta feel underdeveloped. Frances never feels like a full person. She has a family history, works as a waiter at a high-end restaurant, enjoys reading, is from Worcester/Boston depending on the audience or the medium and has a rich best friend, but I don’t know what she is like on an ordinary day when a mysterious European woman isn’t stalking her. Most young people who come to New York City do so for a reason, and waiting on tables is usually a means to an end, not a career. She is given a bio, but not a substantial psychological profile. The only thing that did seem credible was that she would hang out with a older woman since her wardrobe and hobbies seemed old fashioned, especially in comparison to her best friend. Just a minor quibble: if Frances was from Boston, Boston isn’t some quaint town. It may not be a major international city, but it is a historic one.
Her best friend on the other hand feels like a real person. Normally the idea of sexuality feels tagged on to most movies, but if you’re best friends with a rich party girl in New York who likes to wear insanely high heels, at least one of you needs to have the sexual partner that comes with that level of peacocking and clubbing. It felt odd that both young women were so sexless as if this movie was made in a completely different setting.
Frances felt as if she was invented to become the victim, not as if she had her life rudely interrupted. If you’re familiar with the actor who plays her best friend, you’ll predict the denouement fairly early. While I did enjoy the payoff, it took too long to get there—the ninety-eight minute movie feels like an eternity. (Moretz and Maika Monroe were in The 5th Wave.) I used to be a really big Moretz fan, but after seeing her in a handful of 2018 movies in which she was the weakest part of the film, I think that she has sadly plateaued. Her range is limited: from a slightly opened mouth to a pleasant smiling face. She has become such a boring actor that she is making me retroactively wonder if she was ever good. She rarely does anything that is excitingly unexpected in her performances and is not a character that you feel invested in except theoretically. She is either too understated or too over the top in her reactions. I need her to explore the levels in between and project more nuanced emotion and feelings on her face.
If you’re a Huppert fan, she is the main reason to see Greta, and the best part of the film. She is genuinely disturbing. When characters in the movie refer to her as an old woman, I kept thinking, “Who are you talking about? Have you seen Elle?” She credibly feels as if she could have been a relative of the antagonist in Takashi Miike’s Audition. Huppert’s performance was perfect, and if you come to the movie with a suspicious heart, while all the beats are predictable, she makes them feel fresh. If Kathy Bates’ Annie from Misery is on one end of the spectrum, Huppert’s Greta is on the other—like a psychotic, mature Tinker Bell without wings. Even though I expected one of her predator strategies, when it actually happened, I found her dancing around more disturbing than anything else. Unfortunately what Jordan chooses to reveal about her relationship with her daughter or not to reveal about her marriage was uneven and left me feeling dissatisfied. If I’m going to get a prose dump about a character, I want the whole thing.
When Stephen Rea appears, on one hand, I thought, “Hurrah!” because he is a staple Jordan player, but on the other hand, his character seems rather extraneous, and it feels as if other characters that were already introduced could have served the same function. Colm Feore also seems underutilized. Either do more or cut him out altogether. I understand that this film was made to focus on the ladies, and I applaud focusing on a stalker in a same sex, intergenerational relationship that is not sexual, but then the father should not have even been introduced although without him, we don’t necessarily get an awesome cell phone alibi sequence.
Jordan nails the work dynamic at Frances’ job. It felt like the best depicted dynamic in Greta. His casting is also great. His films always organically have a sprinkling of casual diversity although it would be good if future movies further expanded his diversity scope beyond black or white.
Greta was disappointing. It was so ambitious, but failed to put in the necessary effort and work to accomplish its goals. I loved the denouement, but not enough to retroactively forgive all the scattered, not fully fleshed out thematic choices along the way. It is still a beautiful film to watch with a wink at audiences in hopes that studios may give it a sequel, but studios shouldn’t bother. Fans of the genre will not be pleased, but Huppert lovers may enjoy her quality performance, and Monroe’s growing fan base shouldn’t mind that she doesn’t get a lot of screen time. She may not be given much to do, but once again, she overshadows the lead on screen and is memorable. If you’re a dog lover, stay away for discreet, but unnecessary dog death.