Let’s talk about Chloe Grace Moretz for a minute. For a while, she was our preeminent “kid who works well with adults” (alternatively “kid who swears”). You throw her into something with adult co-stars and she makes a meal out of it. She’s kicked ass in Kick Ass. She gave comic sagely advice in (500) Days of Summer. She matched wits with Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock. It was clear that she was meant to be on camera, but it wasn’t obvious what she would evolve into as an adult. Neighbors 2: Sorority Row indicated that her same swearing shtick didn’t work as well as a she got older. She’d need to hone her comedy skills if she was going to continue in that direction. She didn’t quite fit in the YA drama mold (If I Stay, Brain on Fire). She’s taken the indie route often enough (Clouds of Sils Maria, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Laggies) that I could see her moving more toward that in the coming years. There are two places where she really pops now though. The first is horror. She’s been doing this for a while (Let Me In, 2010) and has remained active in the genre (Carrie, 2013, Suspiria, 2018, Greta, 2018. Not to mention horror-adjacent comedies like Dark Shadows and The Addams Family). What made her work as a child actor was her ability to take absurd ideas seriously. That works for “swearing kid” roles (she would say something like an adult and make it seem like she knew what she was saying) and it works for horror (since everything in horror is something weird made scary by seeming real).
The second place she pops is a movie like Android/Mother. Basically, the pulpy Sci-Fi movie. In 2016, she made The Fifth Wave. At the time, it looked like her attempt at her Hunger Games. There was a wave of these YA dystopias or supernatural romances (The Host, Divergent, Beautiful Creatures, The Mortal Instruments, etc.). That movie mostly failed, but it seems to have moved her into a new direction. In the last two years now, she’s made both Shadow in the Cloud and Mother/Android. Both are dramas with a Sci-fi twist in which she plays a young mother. Shadow in the Cloud is much pulpier and stylized. Mother/Android is more directly Sci-Fi and dramatic. They are very similar though. Like why she works in horror, Moretz works in these because of how seriously she takes the silliest parts of them. And in both cases, the result is a decently fun movie. Shadow in the Cloud is a little better just for how nuts it gets, but they each have their merit.
So, I’m liking the current blueprint for Moretz’s career. Work in the genre space (horror, Sci-Fi) long enough to get out of the kid actor space (she’s still only 24!). Look for the occasional Sundance movie to keep her familiar with the arty types. Maybe be in a family film often enough for good paychecks and easy familiarity. By the time she’s 30, she’s got enough clout, experience, and familiarity with audiences to do just about anything. At least, that’s my optimistic view. The pessimistic view is that none of the big filmmakers are casting her for anything so she’s taking whatever lead roles she can get, hoping that eventually something breaks out or she stumbles into a workable identity as a grown-up performer. Either way, I remain interested.
Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend
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