Greta - A Tale as Old as Time
A story as old as a time – a wide eyed, fresh young woman arriving off the bus in New York City only to be beaten down by the intensity of this giant monster of tower blocks and greenery. A lot of things can happen in these stories – drugs, prostitution, mugged, working in a knock off Elmo costume in Times Square. But it’s a story we never tire of and a story that is never quite heeded.
Greta, a psychological thriller from 2018, takes its own attempt at this old story and attacks it with a fresh ferocity that will leave you breathless and thoroughly creeped out. Written by Ray Wright and Neil Jordan, and directed by Jordan, Greta stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Isabelle Huppert, and Maika Monroe.
Premise:
Frances is a young woman living in New York in her friend Erica’s loft (purchased by her father as a graduation present). Frances is a waitress and hasn’t yet been beaten down by the city, whereas Erica who seems to have lived there her whole life, gently teases Frances for her naivety constantly. One night on her way home from work Frances finds an abandoned purse on the subway. After looking through she finds it belongs to a woman named Greta. Frances returns the purse directly to Greta and is invited in for a thank you coffee. The two women quickly hit it off – Greta is a widower with a young daughter studying in Paris, Frances lost her mother a few years back, and the two find comfort in their grief and loneliness together. But one-night Frances finds a cupboard in Greta’s home filled with matching purses, all of which have paper attached to them with women’s names and phone numbers. Frances realizes she’s been duped and Greta has clearly not been telling the truth.
“This is Manhattan, you find a bag you call the bomb squad!”
Here’s what I loved (full spoilers):
There’s some really solid performances here. Monroe as Erica is subtle but lovable, able to come off as spoiled without it being annoying. Moretz pulls off wide-eyed and innocent very well as Frances, in the final scenes when Frances is freed by Erica, her performance is heart-breakingly real. But the stand out here is Huppert as Greta. What an incredible piece of work she’s achieved here.
Greta starts out as this kind, grief ridden woman who gives you the chills but you’re not sure why. It’s not until Frances rejects Greta that she shows her true colors. But even then, her behavior slowly escalates until she’s screaming in Frances’s face in her place of work. This is honestly bone chilling and it really freaked me out. She’s quickly taken off to hospital as it seems as if she’s had some sort of mental break.
But that’s not as crazy as Greta gets, she’s like this horrifying onion that just gets scarier and scarier the more she opens up. By the very end she’s shoeless, dancing around her home shooting private detectives and injecting people with needles. It’s insane to watch and Huppert deserves all the awards for flying completely off the handle but constantly ensuring it remains believable.
There’s a lot going on this film considering there’s only really three characters. But it’s handled really well. There’s no “lore dump” about Greta, it’s all revealed slowly throughout the film to the point you realize everything about her is a lie. And when you think it can’t get any worse, you’re introduced to the box she keeps her captors in.
At the end, Frances is kidnapped by Greta and we soon find out how long she’s been doing this. She has a whole system in place – a hidden room that’s set up like a child’s bedroom along with a toybox that she locks the girls in. And a basement where she dumps the bodies. It’s all impeccably planned and clear she’s been doing this for a long time, preying on those who have recently arrived to the city, doe-eyed and innocent. Greta is embodying the myth of New York City.
There’s a lot of things to love in this flick and to be scared by so I won’t share much more.
Overall:
This is a psychological thriller at its best with some great twists and turns and a totally epic ending. It’s also horrifyingly real. Last year and into the early parts of this year I was harassed by a former colleague, and while it was not as extreme as Frances and Greta, it was enough to give me the chills and a bit of a flashback to how horrifying it used to be to look down at your phone and see this woman has found another way to contact you despite you hiding from them.
It has some incredible standout moments I’ll be thinking of for a long time (especially that scene when Greta stands outside of Frances’s work watching her for hours) and excellent performances by all involved.
I highly recommend watching this and enjoying the horror of Greta and her obsession.
“I’m like chewing gum.” “Chewing gum?” “I tend to stick around.”
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