Boston innocent Francis McCullin (Chloe Moretz) finds a woman's handbag on a NY subway and decides to return it against the advice of her hip roommate Erica (Maika Monroe) to Greta Hedig (Isabelle Huppert) a middle aged French woman living in Brooklyn. It is apparent early that there is something odd about Greta but Franny perhaps looking for a mother figure avoids the warning sign until she discovers a fact that cannot get her away from the banshee fast enough. Greta begins to stalk her openly after being rejected and since all of NYC is willing to turn a blind eye to her disturbing obsession allows Greta to kidnap and torture
accommodating rube Franny who disappears without a trace.
Stretching credulity beyond its breaking point about half an hour into the story, Greta is an insipid thriller that asks you to swallow an awful lot of absurdity in its attempt at modern day Gothic horror of psychopath hiding in plain sight. Neil Jordan' script and direction is abysmal from the get go with his enigmatic lynch pin revealed early forcing him to stack one semi-suspenseless, contrived scene on top of one another with wide eyed gullible Fran doing her requisite bungling to get her in deeper. Break a full window to escape? No way, run down into the dark basement and try and climb up an out a window a fraction of its size instead.
Moretz's dense Franny is all whine and whimper to a point of annoying. The usually excellent Huppert is anything but, her performance stilted and a touch comatose. Given her pedigree I expected more out of Greta but with the script going adrift early it is little more than a poorly edited sloppy slasher that is overlong at 99 minutes.
Stretching credulity beyond its breaking point about half an hour into the story, Greta is an insipid thriller that asks you to swallow an awful lot of absurdity in its attempt at modern day Gothic horror of psychopath hiding in plain sight. Neil Jordan' script and direction is abysmal from the get go with his enigmatic lynch pin revealed early forcing him to stack one semi-suspenseless, contrived scene on top of one another with wide eyed gullible Fran doing her requisite bungling to get her in deeper. Break a full window to escape? No way, run down into the dark basement and try and climb up an out a window a fraction of its size instead.
Moretz's dense Franny is all whine and whimper to a point of annoying. The usually excellent Huppert is anything but, her performance stilted and a touch comatose. Given her pedigree I expected more out of Greta but with the script going adrift early it is little more than a poorly edited sloppy slasher that is overlong at 99 minutes.