If someone has ever told you that “everyone needs a friend,” and that is something you strongly believe, you might want to rethink that after you’ve seen the movie, “Greta.” It follows the story of a eccentric and French piano teacher named Greta (played by Isabelle Huppert) living in New York. The movie follows her relationship with a newcomer to New York named Frances (played by Chloe Grace Moretz).
The movie begins with Frances finding a handbag on the metro with an ID belonging to a woman named Greta. Being the self proclaimed good person she is, Frances decides to return the purse. When she does, she meets Greta herself who is a seemingly harmless older woman in need of a friend. Frances immediately forms a bond with Greta due to her mom recently passing and her need for a motherly figure in her life. Greta needed a friend because she was lonely, because her only daughter was away from her. After meeting, Frances and Greta strike up a fast friendship doing all sorts of things together such as going for walks, Frances helping Greta adopt a dog, and having dinner together. It is then when Frances realizes that Greta purposefully leaves bags on the subway waiting for something to bring them back to her so she can be their friend.
After this revelation, Frances is terrified and tries to stay away from Greta, but Greta does not stop trying to come into contact with Frances. Greta continues to Frances at work, leave hundreds of texts/calls, and even resorts to stalking Frances’s best friend. Towards the end of the movie, Greta can only be seen as an obsessive and erratic forcing Frances to somehow escape the toxic relationship between the two of them.
Aside from the creepy plot and the amazing score of the movie, my favorite part about “Greta” was Isabelle Huppert in her role as Greta herself. Huppert was fantastic. She was able to encompass and portray a crazy, obsessive, lonely woman. Greta’s character shows how crazy isolation can make someone. In one scene in particular, Greta dances around her house in her stockings listening to Liszt just after she shot a man. Her totally numb attitude throughout the movie helped illustrate the madness that made up her character.
“Greta” offers a new look at horror movies compared to those that normally come out and follow the same prosaic plot. “Greta” is a psychological thriller that does not completely seem impossible to occur in real life. The movie shows that something like that can happen to anyone and that one should always be sure who they let into their life.
