Gre­ta – first look review

It’s often said that being nice gets you absolute­ly nowhere. Neil Jordan’s lat­est film, Gre­ta, rel­ish­es prov­ing such a cold, hard truth. A harm­less good deed quick­ly becomes a wak­ing night­mare in this fast-paced, dark­ly com­ic thriller star­ring Chloë Grace Moretz along­side a fierce Isabelle Huppert.

Moretz is Frances McCullen, a fresh-faced wait­ress liv­ing an inde­pen­dent life in New York. She is new to the city, so when she arrives home one day with a stranger’s purse she finds on the sub­way, her flat­mate Eri­ca (Mai­ka Mon­roe) berates her for bring­ing home a ​“bomb threat”. The purse in ques­tion belongs to a woman named Gre­ta (Hup­pert), and a con­sid­er­ate Frances returns it to her home in per­son, accept­ing an inno­cent cof­fee as a thank you for her dis­play of kindness.

A friend­ship grows from this encounter and the pair begin to spend more and more time togeth­er. Gre­ta fills a void left in Frances after the recent death of her moth­er, and in turn Frances acts as a sur­ro­gate daugh­ter for an estranged par­ent. It is a con­ve­nient arrange­ment, a way of find­ing com­pan­ion­ship for two lone­ly souls in a big city.

Things take a sin­is­ter turn after anoth­er vis­it to her new friend’s home unveils more than Frances had expect­ed. Gre­ta becomes obses­sive, an atten­tion-craved stalk­er who harass­es Frances at every turn. Her behav­iour is juve­nile but end­less­ly unnerv­ing, and she rev­els in play­ing the part of scorned lover and sadis­tic tease to deli­cious­ly dark effect. Hup­pert is great fun to watch, with a vicious stare and dev­il­ish sense of humour. She dances her way through her tricks and traps, mak­ing an unde­ni­ably enter­tain­ing villain.

Out­bursts of almost slap­stick vio­lence pep­per a neat­ly com­posed nar­ra­tive. Jor­dan also hints at the storm brew­ing in Gre­ta, and Frances soon must fight back against Greta’s fiendish pow­er or risk being engulfed by it for­ev­er. The care­ful ten­sion build­ing and shock fac­tor of the sto­ry com­ple­ment the sleek ele­gance and com­e­dy that runs through­out. Togeth­er these ele­ments com­bine to form a dynam­ic and absorb­ing film with a heart of sheer silliness.