Review:
"Greta"
Release Date: March 1, 2019
Rating: R Running Time: 98 minutes Stop me if you have heard this before. A young woman becomes the object of obsession and, after exhausting all possible legal measures, must meet violence with violence when her unhinged stalker gets physical. On paper, writer/director Neil Jordan’s Greta reads like another throwback to such thrillers of the 1980s and the 1990s as Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, and The Hand That Rocked the Cradle. But Greta is in a class of its own thanks to its not-so secret weapon: Isabelle Huppert. As daring as ever, the iconic French actress turns Greta into a deliciously wicked affair with an outwardly sweet, inwardly malevolent portrait of a widowed piano teacher driven to the brink of madness by profound and prolonged loneliness. All seems well when Chloë Grace Moretz’s Frances McCullen strikes up an unexpected friendship with Huppert’s widowed piano teacher Greta. Too trusting for her own good, Frances believes Greta just wants and needs company. And Frances, who is struggling to accept the death of her mother, appreciates Greta’s maternal instincts. Both are afflicted by grief in their own way, which helps them connect on an emotional level. But Frances catches Greta out in a lie and tries to distances herself from the seemingly harmless senior. Greta, though, refuses to let their “friendship” wither away. At this point, director Neil Jordan begins to turn the screws slowly but surely until he reaches a tightly executed climax that deftly and knowingly plays into the theme of social isolation that runs through Greta. Jordan and co-screenwriter Ray Wright maintain a strict focus on the disintegrating relationship between Frances and Greta, with Frances’ roommate Erica—played by Maika Monroe with a healthy dose of skepticism—initially standing in for an audience uncertain of how things are going to play out and how far Jordan and Wright intend to push Greta’s fascination with the macabre. Jordan’s display of restraint for much of Greta is appreciated, and he rewards us with a lunatic ending that sees him paying tribute to Brian De Palma paying tribute to Alfred Hitchcock. Like Jordan, Huppert knows her limits. She delivers a masterclass in understated terrorization while maintaining her poise and dignity when all hell breaks out. Huppert may not be physically imposing but she proves herself to be an intimidating presence thanks to her unflappable demeanor and the quietly ominous way she delivers her sharply written dialogue. Greta, though, would not work as well without Chloë Grace Moretz. She exudes a genuine naivety that makes Frances the perfect target for Greta before digging deep to find a some degree of empathy for her tormentor. What emerges from this twisted tête-à-tête is a chilling cautionary tale about the way we seek to fill the emotional void we experience while struggling with grief. Robert Sims Aired: Feb. 28, 2019 Web site: http://focusfeatures.com/greta/ |
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