Isabelle Huppert brings her ‘A’ game to a B-movie in Neil Jordan's thriller Greta, reports Dan Slevin.
Isabelle Huppert and Chloë Grace Moretz share a moment in Neil Jordan’s thriller Greta. Photo: Universal
The great Isabelle Huppert’s career now contains a brace of psychologically troubled piano teachers. Haneke’s The Piano Teacher in 2001 was as difficult a watch as any that he’s ever made but Neil Jordan’s Greta is a much more commercially entertaining affair, even if Mme Huppert has brought her ‘A’ game to a B-movie.
Huppert plays the eponymous Greta, a lonely widow in Brooklyn who leaves her handbag in a subway car to be found by another fish out of water – Frances (Chloë Grace Moretz). Frances is grieving for the recent loss of a mother – and her father’s recent remarriage. She’s living with Erica, her best friend from college, (Maika Monroe) whose own parents appear to be billionaires – her father bought her a Tribeca loft as a graduation present.
But this is a pretend New York, not a real one. A New York where you can leave your expensive bicycle unlocked against a building while you go and investigate the trash belonging to this mysterious older woman – and the bicycle is still there when you get back!
Photo: Universal
When she returns the handbag, Frances is befriended by Greta. They exchange cell numbers, Frances helps Greta find a dog from the shelter (although it is a little odd that Greta selects the very first pooch she sees) and the younger woman starts neglecting her roommate.
But then she discovers something that makes her question the reality as well as the value of her new friendship but when she tries to break it off, all hell – as they say – breaks loose.
Photo: Universal
It’s a genuine pleasure to watch a thriller like this that isn’t afraid to dial up the silliness of its premise to 11 which it does in a third act that is so focused on hitting the jump-scare beats that it joyously throws its remaining logic under the bus. It’s fun!
Even better is watching Huppert play with this role like a cat plays with a mouse. At first, she’s a little hesitant and her body language is fidgety. We’re tempted to think that – because this is a rare departure for her into the English language – she might be a little less sure of herself than usual. There’s no danger of that. By the third act she’s literally dancing a shuffle in her stockinged feet – like Muhammad Ali – as she vanquishes another contender.
Final note: my companion and I always stay in our seats until the very end of the credits – to the annoyance of some cinema attendants – but we just love to see which country’s taxpayers have contributed most to the art we’ve just seen. Despite being set fair and square in New York City, Greta is supported by Screen Ireland/Fís Éirann (interiors and post-production) and the Canadian government screen credit (many of the exteriors were Toronto pretending to be New York with a quick side-trip by the production to get some real subway and Manhattan bridge action).
Greta is playing in selected cinemas across New Zealand.
