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'Greta' Movie Review With Casey

greta

Twenty-two-year-old actress Chloe Grace Moretz (Hugo, 2011) plays a timid waitress in New York City who finds a forgotten purse on the subway. How convenient to find a woman's ID right inside the purse too! 

Upon returning the purse to its owner, the waitress sparks an awkward friendship with a lonely, middle-aged, French woman named Greta (the dignified Isabelle Huppert, Elle, 2016). But Greta's loneliness runs deeper than meets the eye, and her relationship with her young new friend turns from infatuation to obsession to rage.

Greta reminds me of other female-centered psychological thrillers like Misery (from 1990) or Notes on a Scandal (from 2006), but Greta is like a juvenile version of this genre. With ominous classical music and prosaic jump scares, Greta tries to be a serious gripping story, but its sense of danger is just not convincing to envelop you, and its characters are too superficial to evoke any lasting emotional depth. Director Neil Jordan (The Brave One, 2007) seemed to be phoning it in with this one. A rolling pin, a child's toy chest, and a cookie cutter are all used in nasty ways, but these moments don't give this film enough edge to make it interesting. For a more satisfying, dark, psychological edge, try The Piano Teacher (from 2001), Funny Games (from 1997), or even Thoroughbreds from last year. 

After watching Greta, I left the move theater with slumped shoulders and a deflated attitude.

Casey T. Allen is a native of Utah who graduated from Utah State University with a Bachelor's degree in English in 2007. He has worked in many capacities throughout USU campus and enjoys his time at UPR to continually exercise his writing.