If you care deeply about not spoiling the movie Greta, just stop reading right now.
First and foremost, I’m not a movie person. I can’t keep my attention focused on something for that long. I like watching TV shows because I can browse Twitter while I watch and the commercial breaks chop it up for me. I like reading books because I have to create a mental image in my head as I read along. Movies create everything for me, I just sit there, slack-jawed, staring at a screen. The last two movies I saw in theaters were Insidious 3 (2015) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011) just to give you some reference.
I am all about movies now though. I finally went to the luxury cinema. Recliner seats, a bar, cheap tickets. They have me as a customer.
Despite a 54% on Rotten Tomatoes, I thought Greta had some hope. I’m ALL IN on the current fascination with stalking, kidnapping, and the likes. I watched You in two days and sat on the edge of the couch while watching Abducted in Plain Sight. The synopsis of the movie seemed like something right up this alley:
Frances finds a handbag on the New York subway and promptly returns it to Greta, an eccentric French piano teacher who loves tea and classical music. Having recently lost her mother, young Frances strikes up a seemingly harmless friendship with the lonely and kindly widow who enjoys her company. But when Greta’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic and obsessive, Frances does whatever it takes to end the toxic relationship before things spirals out of control.
First of all, Frances, you’re in New York City. If I see a bag on the subway in Pittsburgh I’m not touching it. I expect it to have a bomb, homo pee, or some kind of illicit drug in it They try and bill it that Frances is from the quaint, little town of Boston. WHAT?! Boston is one of the most racist, rude cities in America. It also has about 700,000 people living within the city proper. Pair that with the fact that Frances is a recent college grad and has a home phone, this movie is unwatchable just because of that.
The movie felt rushed, almost like director Neil Jordan and writer Ray Wright just wanted to get a psychological thriller on the market because they knew it was the hot item.
It’s almost like they forgot to introduce the characters. WHAM. All of the sudden Frances McCullen and Erica Penn are apparently recent college graduates and Erica just happens to have a rich dad who bought her a SoHo loft and Frances’s mom died of cancer. No lead up, no backstory, just a dump of a character in front of us. You blink and you miss it. First Frances is waiting tables at a fancy restaurant and next she’s living it up with a haphazard version of Emma Roberts’ Madison Montgomery from American Horror Story.
I’ll move past the weak character development and just chalk it up to not wanting to drag the movie out past two hours. Fair enough.
Except, those aren’t the only issues. There is no point of to the movie and I’m left with more questions than answers.
First is Greta’s daughter. Greta lures Frances in under the pretense that her daughter is away in Paris and Frances, having recently lost a mother, bites and gets caught in the web. Of course, Greta’s daughter hasn’t talked to her in five years and Frances finds returned letters that Greta has sent and concludes that the phone calls that Greta was having with Nicola were also fabricated. Frances decides to snoop, grabs Nicola’s number out of Greta’s phone. A friend returns the call and we find out that Nicola committed suicide. Except, that just opens a vat of question that never gets answered. Did Nicola’s suicide lead to Greta’s kidnapping behavior? Did Nicola kill herself because of Greta? Did Nicola’s alcohol problem (which was dumped on us by the friend) lead to this untimely demise? This is a huge plot point that we should know more about. Was this the catalyst that set the movie in motion or a byproduct of Greta’s insanity?
Second is the dog. Why did the dog have to die? Why did Greta and Frances have to shop for a dog in the first place? It was a bonding moment for the two ladies and should have shown humility with Greta picking the dog that was next on the list to be euthanized. Maybe this was a play to get us into Greta’s corner, but it is going to take more than a dog adoption to do that and it fell flat on its face. Even the one scene in the movie where having a dog would make sense – Greta telling the P.I. that it was her guard dog making the noise – the dog was already dead. Then the dog serving as a science experiment on the proper dosage to incapacitate Frances. Dogs and humans are different. What if Greta used too much on the dog but that amount wouldn’t have any impact on Frances? Why not just use the poison the girl that Greta already had locked in the basement? I think this was another haphazard attempt by the writers to “make a good movie” and throw in a dog because people love dogs!
Finally the last two points which tie into one, why have Erica play the role of undercover secret agent and go after Greta and what happens to Greta after this? Even if you suspend belief in order to watch the movie, it makes zero sense why the police were not involved and instead Erica plays the role of Angelina Jolie’s Evelyn Salt. The police know the history, after all, Frances did call them twice. They know the stalking behavior of Greta. Greta sends letters with her return address and name, has been the hospital in care of the police, they know her name, her motive, and presumably her address. Even if you still want the undercover sing operation involving a missing purse, send an undercover cop in with the bag. Don’t leave a early 20-something girl to do the dirty work and possibly wind up in the same situation as her roommate and best friend. There is already a missing girl and a missing private eye. I’m sure the police will take an interest and case the absolute shit out of that place. They might even bust down the door S.W.A.T style and rescue Frances. Finally what happens to Greta after all of this?! If you play along it is the perfect scenario that she was locked in the box by the girls. Okay, I’ll buy it and even pretend it makes sense. But what happens next? Does Greta escape? Do the cops come? Is there supposed to be a sequel? It makes no sense.
I’m fine with cliffhangers. I read all of the Tanya French books and there are ton of unanswered questions in those, but it makes sense why. In this movie, I feel like the cliffhangers are simply due to an unfinished plot.
theformerfratboy.home.blog 