GRETA (2019)

In a world full of bonkers Isabelle Huppert thrillers, we found the most bonkers

Irish director Neil Jordan might be the most unsung auteur working. It could be that he’s hopped genres and budget brackets so many times that a dramatic zoom out is needed to take in the breadth of Mona Lisa, Company of Wolves, The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire, and Byzantium. He’s also made a few awkward studio films and star vehicles, but his skill at misdirection and assembling discrete images—probably coming from his beginnings as a literal author—is always mesmerizing. A good Neil Jordan film is like walking into someone else’s dream.

Having released after Byzantium—a late masterpiece of gender and vampire studies—Greta at first seems like a step back into safety for Jordan. Chloë Grace Moretz is a 20-something restaurant server who encounters the lonely piano teacher Isabelle Huppert in one of those random New York encounters. Or is it so random? Moretz has lost her mother recently and Huppert is more than happy to step into a symbolic role, whether Moretz wants her to or not. Huppert has often savored the rich desert that is the Totally Bonkers Thriller, from Christine Pascal’s La Garce to Claude Chabrol’s La Cérémonie and Paul Verhoeven’s Elle. Her piano teaching here is also certainly a nod to her sadistic turn for Michael Haneke.

While the setup is conventional, Greta eventually goes places that are as disturbing as they are utterly audience pleasing. As we say in our talk, what starts out as a movie you’d watch on a plane soon turns into the story you’d hallucinate after mixing Ativan and mini bottles of scotch.

We came to this film cold on our first watch, with nothing more than the vague knowledge that critics in pre-pandemic 2019 found it campy. If you want the full Greta effect: stop reading this, don’t read the Wiki, go watch it on MAX now. Then come back here and pitch your ideas for an Isabelle Huppert–led horror franchise.  —Brian J Davis

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EMILY SCHULTZ: That is so not a New York subway.

BRIAN J DAVIS: This was filmed in Dublin, Toronto, and New York and for me it’s kind of dizzying because I can recognize each city. But to be fair, try filming a single New York set story in three different countries—it’s not easy! Okay, let’s see how this first scene plays now that we know what crazy shit happens after.

ES: I'm looking at it now and I see that it's not a full curtain behind the piano, as if to imply a window, but you can see the secret door in this scene.

BJD: My question for this commentary is: how incumbent is it for a thriller to be logical?  And maybe one of the more unique things about Greta is that it turns from a thriller into a horror film. It's set up as Single French Female and then it does not stay there!

ES: There’s also the reveal that Huppert’s character is not actually French, she's Hungarian. Presenting Isabelle Huppert as not French is a weird flex.

BJD: We’ll get more to the cognitive dissonance of Huppert as a horror icon, but yeah, in my mind this is a sequel to The Piano Teacher—the start of Michael Haneke expanded universe!

ES: There are parts that are viscerally scary and then there are other parts that are scary in a way that makes you laugh.

BJD: The thriller asks you engage intellectually with the plot. A horror film only wants your emotions, and laughter is a perfectly common response to something horrific.

ES: There is a big tone switerchoo. We very much have Moretz investigating what’s real or not about Greta, after that first big reveal of the closet full of identical handbags that Greta “loses” on subways.

BJD: We were debating whether that came too soon but I also remember thinking, “This is 20 minutes in. What is the rest of the film going to be like?” I knew the film was bound to be interesting from that point on. I do like that, for the most part, Moretz’s responses are realistic. She makes that discovery at dinner. She gets the hell out of there.

ES: It does make us respect her as a character. She always follows her instincts and she doesn't backtrack on them.

BJD: Her only mistake later on is when she listens to advice from her roommate, which you should never do! Roommates don't have enough stake in your life, or just want your room.  Let's talk about the éléphante in this room, which is the insane villain is played by doyenne of French cinema, Isabelle Hubert.

ES: I think that most of us know that predators don't always look like predators and so that's something that I think works well: she doesn't look like someone you would expect to behave so erratically. Though as it stands the film probably leans too much into superhuman stalking footage.

BJD: And here is Isabelle Huppert in the hallway. “Hallo, have you read my script yet?” Just kidding. She doesn’t say that. In fact, she spits gum into Moretz’s hair! Such pure Gallic loathing.

ES: It was at this point I was “Now I’m sold on Greta.”

BJD: Again, Greta starts out with the expectations of a relatively conventual lady thriller, but there is a big turn and once you realize it was all set-up in the first five minutes…chef’s kiss. This starts as a movie you’d watch on a plane and turns into the story you’d hallucinate after mixing Ativan and mini bottles of scotch. And here’s a great Jordanian touch—every time Moretz uses her elevator the mirrors tremble. Why? First viewing we unconsciously think verisimilitude—it’s a crappy New York elevator. But then, after the later nightmare sequence, we now know we were led on to be totally confused and terrorized. Tricky bastard!

ES: Okay, the photo stalking scene. I was laughing for the whole thing and that was the first time where I was like, “Oh I'm not really supposed to be laughing right now.”

BJD: We can describe this scene but no way does that convey how insane it is. The roommate, played by Maika Monroe of It Follows, is at a bar on the phone with Moretz, and Moretz is simultaneously receiving stalking photos of her roommate sent by Huppert! And the way it ends.

[Both] “This chick is seriously disturbed.”

ES: I think it is actually super effective if ridiculous.

BJD: They almost turn Isabelle Huppert into John Doe in SE7EN.

BJD: And now it’s Zawe Ashton—she's always great and here she comes in with this beautifully modulated four-minute performance that just melts the paint off the wall.  

ES: One idea in this film I like is that Moretz is not just drawn to a mother figure, but Huppert’s sophistication. I mean here she is living as a freebie roomate in a loft with a rich friend, and it seems like she doesn’t know what she wants from New York. They could have gone deeper with the theme.

BJD: It’s a common feeling in New York. You're in the home of money itself and you can feel very disassociated being surrounded by this much wealth, access, and privilege.

ES: This moment with the microwave is beautiful too. It's that surreal writerly touch that makes us question what’s important or not and puts us at ease when we shouldn’t be.

BJD: There's not many novelists turned directors —there's really only two or three.

ES: “Did you water the plants?” It's always the last question you ask before you collapse. That's wonderful—Huppert’s ghost-like presence as she kidnaps Moretz and now it switches from thriller to horror film. This is also where it really becomes Huppert’s film.

BJD: Don't trust the French in 4b! Now this scene, I was like— wait a minute—this is so not Moretz’s character, even if she is being drugged. She’s going along a little too easily with Huppert locking her in a toy trunk and forcing her to be a perfect substitute daughter. But then, and exactly when I needed it…

ES: Having always made holiday cookies with my mother using old metal cookie cutters, the minute I saw those, I knew what was coming for Huppert’s fingers. And now I literally yelled at the screen, “Don’t go down to the basement. The one thing you don’t do is go into a basement!”

BJD: Which means we are firmly in a horror film now. It’s totally in control of our emotions. Okay, if you’re now part of the Greta-hive, the DVD is worth seeking out because there’s a deleted scene that could totally have been Huppert’s horror franchise catchphrase.

ES: “I am most definitely out of embalming powder now.”

BJD: Coming soon, Greta 2: Mothers’ Day.

ES: Stephen Rea as the private investigator is showing up at Greta’s. Now here's a question. When you saw him, did you think that he would save Chloë Grace Moritz?

BJD: No! Because I knew this was a tribute to the cinematic history of private detectives getting killed within 30 seconds of walking into the psycho’s house. I'm surprised he didn't fall backwards down the stairs.

ES: I like when she does kill him that's actually when they lean into her delicate Frenchness as part of her killing style.

BJD: She does a shoeless minuet from the shadows and then viola—needle in his neck.  I think it's a tragedy for the world that Greta wasn't a hit. It’s so much fun.

ES: Isabelle Huppert is not just funny, she's utterly terrifying.

BJD: Okay, how about Greta 3-D: Macaroons and Massacres. It will be her origin story.

ES: I like this because that's the thing that you never see in a horror movie really: calm patching of bullet holes and cleaning up the blood. Did you know that Huppert has never won an Academy Award? That’s a tragedy.

BJD: Oh, it's time to leave another purse behind and now a new potential daughter has arrived.

ES: The metronome going off is my favorite touch. And now we see it’s Greta who is finally drugged by the new girl.

BJD: One amazing wig reveal later, and it’s Maika Monroe here to save her best friend. I think I pumped my fist in the air. The only way to have made it even better would have been to have Monroe say, “I’m following YOU now!”

ES: You one hundred percent called what was happening.

BJD: And yet I still thoroughly enjoyed it.  There's nothing wrong with making your audience happy with an ending. How do you feel that none of the men were effective in this film and it’s a woman surviving by her own strength and the dedication of her best friend?

ES: It works really well. I mean in a horror movie about your mother locking you in a room and keeping you forever obviously it’s your best friend who’s going to be the one to break you out of there!