Formula:
Single White Female * Tuesdays with Morrie
Neil Jordan's latest film is about exactly that.
Frances (Chloe Grace Moretz) finds a purse on a New York subway car. She
delivers it back to the woman it belongs to, Greta Hideg (Isabelle Huppert).
They hit it off right away. Frances recently lost her mother. Greta's family
all died or left the city. They each fill a void in the other's life. They see
each other a few more times, then Frances discovers that Greta leaves purses
all around the city as a ruse to get people to come to her. Frances ends their
friendship immediately, and Greta begins stalking her with increasing menace.
That's where I'll stop, but I guarantee you could guess the rest of what
happens with at least 80% accuracy.
I suspect this is a movie that I'm going to hate
much more than the average person. That's because the writing quirks in this
play into some of my biggest pet peeves. This is an awfully written movie.
Really terrible writing, but it is consistent with the genre. Every genre has
some conventions that fans learn to forgive. I can't with Greta though.
Yes, this is another case of me complaining about plot-driven writing versus
character-driven writing. Sorry, it's such an easy thing to spot in a poor
screenplay. Almost all the beats of the story rely on chance or characters not
being sensible. It's lazy writing, and the thrills it produces don't make up
for the holes in the story.
I almost can't judge the performances, because they
are hampered by some pretty terrible dialogue. So much of the dialogue felt
unnatural. The focus is on what wording would move the plot along, not how
people would actually talk to each other. I'm afraid that Chloe Grace Moretz
gets the worst of this. Her character is defined as "girl who misses her
mother" and little else. Her friend, played by Maika Monroe, is a rich
party girl. As far as I can tell, she's only likable because she's played by
Monroe. Isabelle Hupert needed to be at least 40% more insane. For the rest of
the tone of this movie to work, Huppert's performance needs to be "Faye
Dunnaway in Mommie Dearest"-big by the end. This is a dream role
for a great actress in a way, because she's allowed to give into every bad
instinct she's ever had control. Doing so would make the movie better.
Instead, Huppert keeps trying to ground the character, which only heightens the
absurdity of the writing.
I feel like a wet blanket writing about this movie;
like I don't know how to just have a good time watching a movie. That's the
thing though. My issue really isn't that I want the movie to be more
believable. I want it to lean more into the camp. The selling point of this
movie isn't that it's scary. It's the idea of a sweet older woman turning out
to be a crazy, dangerous, stalker. That's a somewhat funny pitch. The movie
should play with that more. There is some camp, perhaps enough for other
people's tastes. Certainly the music of the film plays into the camp. It
telegraphs every suspenseful moment. There aren't surprises, because the music
always starts first to tell you "shit's about to go down".
This is a decent movie if you are predisposed to
liking stalker-type movies (think: Single, White Female). I imagine a
lot of the people who made You a surprise hit on Netflix could find
something to be intrigued by in Greta. For those of you only interested
because you think that having the legendary Isabelle Huppert will raise the
form - like, how Meryl brought a film like The Devil Wears Prada to the
next level - I recommend that you stay away.
After the Credits:
In case you don't know what I mean by the story
relying on contrivances and poor decision-making, here are a couple things that
come to mind.
-The scene with the private investigator bothered
the hell out of me. It's a time filler that adds nothing to the story. I guess
it's supposed to prove that Greta is craftier than we realize. I'm not sure I
buy that. The scene relies on the investigator not being alert enough to notice
Greta coming up behind him (but she's barefoot!...yeah, OK). And, we are just
to assume that an expensive P.I. leaves no record of where to find him if he
goes missing? The default assumption can't be that he's reckless and bad at his
job.
-The friend finds Greta's bag? Seriously, that's
what we're building the climax on? In a city of countless millions, even if
Monroe can narrow down Greta's bag dropping strategy, what are the odds that
Monroe still happens to be there on the right train at the right time? Since
Frances is still around and in captivity, I'm assuming no one else has returned
the bag in the mean time. Also, what happens if it isn't a young woman
returning the bag? Monroe hasn't been following Greta to know when she's left a
bag. If that was the case, she would've found Great's house already and
side-stepped the whole convoluted plan. On that note: couldn't she find Greta's
address in a police report? Why haven't the cops come by to question Greta
already? They have a report of her attacking Frances at work. If Frances goes
missing, she's suspect #1.
-Double-tap! That scene when Frances cuts off
Greta's finger and knocks her out doesn't play at all. First off all, are these
bulletproof windows or something? Sure, the house is reinforced, but I'm
seeing far too many chairs and windows to think Frances couldn't've made more
of a ruckus. Secondly, Huppert isn't physically imposing. Smash. Her.
Head. In. Or maim her further. Break her other hand. Anything to
level the playing field. The difference between even a weakened Moretz and
Hupert isn't severe enough for immediate, panicked escape to be her only
option. She could just make it so Greta couldn't box or drug her again
(seriously, what could she get done with two broken hands?). It would be
different if Huppert was built like The Rock or Rhonda Roussey. Then I could
understand why hoping to break out right away is the only option for Frances.
And don't come at me with the "but she was drugged" argument. That
opens a whole other can of worms about how unbelievably Greta kept Frances
contained for that long.
-Why does Greta have so many bags in the house? They
all have different names and phone numbers on them. Sure, that makes it easy to
convey that something isn't right to the viewer and to Frances, but why would
it make sense for Greta to have those (Also, why aren't they locked away and
better hidden, if I'm to believe she's actually good at this)? Are those
trophies of past victims? If so, why does she need a separate identical bag?
Are those all different identities of Greta's? If so, then why would she use
her actual identity for the Frances bag? Ideally, the different bags would be
floating around the NYC transit system anyway, not sitting in her house. Or,
the smarter idea would be to leave one bag at a time. But why the different
names and phone numbers on each? This bag thing actually didn't bother me at
all until I started writing this. But now that I've started, I can't stop
picking at it.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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