Review of the film 'Greta' (2018)

Greta is a cautionary tale about a harassment between women. Young and ingenuous Frances, sharing an apartment in New York with her friend Erica, finds a purse in the subway. Frances returns the purse to its owner, an old lady named Greta who lives in a lonely house surrounded by skyscrapers. Frances, having lost her mother a year ago, finds Greta amiable and they become friends -but Frances discovers that the purse was purposely left in the subway, and then the harassment begins. How extreme will it get? How will it end?

The script written by Ray Wright and modified by director Neil Jordan is the biggest problem of the film. It is bad - the kind of bad that drags down the entire film. There are important plot holes, characters are so much inconsistent that it is impossible to play them right, and above all it is unintelligent. There is a stalking sequence where old Greta follows fast-walking, young Erica on the street, then on the subway, then Erica unexpectedly takes an exit and climbs on a bus - and Greta is already there! What is that, thrilling or hilarious? Greta's character is never developed enough to understand what motivates her, and inconsistent too - at times seductively smart, at times clumsy and unable to control herself. Frances' character is so shallow that it doesn't even have a trait to which her stupid choices could be attributed to. The police is so much non-existent for most of the film that the audience starts to wonder whether it has magically disappeared from the world.

Neil Jordan's direction gets right the pace, the lighting, and most of the acting - which is a sign of a good acting direction. But his choice of music, a selection on songs and piano pieces, is clumsy, using the music to try to set a mood that the audience knows is misleading.

As for the acting, it can never be good – Isabelle Huppert and Chloë Grace Moretz bear the load of inconsistent characters. Maika Monroe does an excellent job though. Jeff Hiller and Stephen Rea are good, and Colm Feore and Zawe Ashton are fine.

All in all, a lacking film. 2 out of 5.

Title:	Greta
Genre:	Thriller
Year:	2018
Nationality:	Ireland, USA
Colour:	Colour
Director:	Neil Jordan
Writer:	Ray Wright, Neil Jordan
Cast:	Isabelle Huppert, Chloë Grace Moretz, Maika Monroe, Jane Perry, Jeff Hiller, Parker Sawyers, Brandon Lee Sears, Arthur Lee, Rosa Escoda, Jessica Preddy, Thaddeus Daniels, Raven Dauda, Colm Feore, Zawe Ashton, Nagisa Morimoto, Navi Dhanoa, Elisa Berkeley, Stephen Rea
Producer:	Lawrence Bender, James Flynn, Sidney Kimmel, John Penotti, Karen Richards
Co-producer:	Judy Ahn, Mark O'Connor, Dylan Tarason, John Weber
Executive producer:	Kim Do-Soo, Ronan Flynn, Mei Han, Neil Jordan, Brian Kornreich, Richard Lewis, Lei Luo, Lesley McKimm, Hwang Soon-il, Catherine Tiernan, Bruce Toll
Production designer:	Anna Rackard
Cinematographer:	Seamus McGarvey
Film editor:	Nick Emerson
Casting:	Stephanie Gorin, Jina Jay
Art Director:	Jason Clarke, Fiona Gavin
Set Decorator:	John Neligan
Running time:	98 minutes
Language:	English, French