Chloe Grace Moretz flits between three facial expressions as Isabelle Huppert gives a valiant attempt at hoisting the film up from the doldrums into a camp, spicy thriller
FRANCES, a young girl new to New York City, finds a handbag on the subway.
Rather than doing what anyone in their right mind would do and leave it the hell alone, she not only takes it, but finds ID inside and delivers it safely back to it’s owner - a French piano teacher called Greta.
The widower appeals to Frances, who recently lost her mum, so the two strike up a friendship - easing each other’s loneliness. The cosy feeling is disrupted when a discovery is made that flips the whole relationship on it’s head and has Frances fearing for her life.
Directed by Neil Jordan (Mona Lisa, Interview with a Vampire), this looks wonderful - with some really great shots eked out of it’s terribly thin story.
Chloë Grace Moretz plods along adequately enough - screaming where necessary and flitting between three facial expressions (resting, crying, scared) but isn’t given anything to do but react to clichéd lines and a ridiculously hammy and camp performance from Isabelle Huppert as Greta.
To her credit, Huppert gives a valiant attempt at hoisting the film up from the doldrums into a camp, spicy thriller - but it’s a losing battle.
For every scene in which we surrender to our early 90’s “Single White Female” or “Deceived” deification, there are a dozen tediums and plot-hole implausibilities waiting to smack you round the chops.
It’s a shame, as it really does look great and occasionally brushes shoulders against a film with something to say about harassment, stalking laws and the like - but the plot is such a cliché and the twists so obviously and laboriously drawn out, it was a mistake trying to turn ‘Greta’ into anything other than the camp B-Movie it clearly wants to be.
Mildly entertaining.
