Greta | Film Review

Hey Guys x

I hadn't heard much about this film at all before I saw it, maybe a trailer or two. But either way, I had no idea what to expect.

Frances (Chloe Grace Moretz) is going home from work one day when she finds a handbag on the subway. Guessing that the person lost it, she takes it off the train with her, finds the owner's address, and returns the bag to the owner, Greta (Isabelle Huppert). Greta, an older woman who lives alone, invites Frances in for some coffee, and the two strike up an unique friendship. But is Greta the harmless, innocent woman that she appears to be?

I really really enjoyed this film.

The initial premise seems a bit far-fetched. The whole film relies on Frances taking Greta's bag from the train and going to great lengths to return it. But I feel like most people would either ignore the bag completely, or take it to a police station. And even if someone did go to those lengths to return the bag, they probably wouldn't then go out of their way to spend more time with this stranger.

This is one of the great things about the film, but also one of it's biggest flaws - stupid decisions. Frances makes so many stupid decisions that you find yourself shouting at the screen way too many times. Whether her decisions are just annoying, or actually life-threatening, there were so many things about the movie that would have changed if it was literally anyone else in that situation.

There were also a few unnecessary characters in the film. For example, Frances's father. He was less than useless - in fact, there wasn't one male character that actually did anything helpful or useful, and more than anything, they were just really annoying.

And then there's the thing that annoyed me the most - now, I loved the plot. Even with it being far-fetched, I thought it was an original premise that was made in a really interesting way.
However, the dialogue throughout the whole film was really weak. The plot was great, I was interested to see what was happening, but it felt like I could have watched the film with just the music and enjoyed it more. Every word out of the characters mouths was bad. Whether unrealistic, nonsensical, stereotypical or whatever, the dialogue was bad.
Thankfully the plot was strong enough to stand on it's own and be a good film, but if the plot was weak in any way, the film would have been really bad.

However, as I've already said, the plot is great. There's an amazing twist in it that I absolutely loved, and I felt like it ended in a really satisfying way, which doesn't happen in a lot of thrillers/horror movies.

As well as that, it's actually scary. This shouldn't come as a surprise given that it is branded as a psychological thriller, but a lot of films branded this way aren't actually scary or thrilling in the slightest, but this one really was, which is a credit to everyone involved, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this film. There's something to be said for a film that can have a lot of bad points and still do exactly what it set out to do, which was scare and entertain. Watch this if you get the chance!

7/10

Lou