Greta

In Neil Jordan’s outlandish thriller, the title character (Isabelle Huppert) is a strange senior citizen who stalks young and naive Frances McCullen (Chloë Grace Moretz). Frances, a recent college grad working as a waitress in New York City, finds a lost handbag on the subway and decides to return it. The owner is elegant but fluttery Greta Hideg, who thanks her profusely and graciously invites her in for tea. Finding Greta to be endearing, Frances befriends her, but soon the woman’s neediness becomes all too apparent: she calls endlessly, and when Frances—who discovers a secret behind that lost purse—becomes frightened of the attention and tries to break off the relationship, Greta turns positively threatening, eventually becoming an even more fearsome version of Bette Davis’s Jane Hudson in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, as she resorts to the most extreme methods to assert control over her victim. The pulpishly implausible plot increasingly strains one’s ability to suspend disbelief, and the last act, protracted almost beyond endurance with the intervention of a detective (Stephen Rea) and a final twist involving Frances’s savvy roommate (Maika Monroe), grows more and more ridiculous. But while Greta is nothing more than B-movie goofiness, Jordan’s go-for-broke approach and Huppert’s no-holds-barred performance make it loopy fun. Recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include deleted scenes (6 min.) and an “Enemies and Friends” behind-the-scenes featurette (4 min.). Bottom line: a small extras package for an over-the-top but entertaining thriller.] (F. Swietek)