Greta review: Isabelle Huppert gives one of her most terrifying performances in this horror-thriller

On one level, this is a psychodrama about grief

Dir: Neil Jordan; Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Chloë Grace Moretz, Maika Monroe. Cert 15, 99 mins

Veteran French actress Isabelle Huppert gives one of her most terrifying performances in Neil Jordan’s overwrought horror-thriller. She hits notes of malevolence that not even Bette Davis could reach in her later roles as psychopathic nannies or twisted old movie stars. As ever with Huppert, less is more. Her restraint and uncanny poise make her character seem all the more menacing.

Huppert plays Greta, a lonely, middle-aged widow living in New York. Greta has a novel way of meeting people. She will pretend to leave her handbag on the subway. It has her identity card and address inside it. Some naive do-gooder will always pick it up and return it to her. That is when she strikes, inserting herself into the life of a new victim and refusing to be removed.

Frances (Chloë Grace Moretz) is a young woman from Boston working as a waitress in Manhattan and living in a loft apartment with her best friend Erica (Maika Monroe). When she finds the bag, Frances is in an emotionally vulnerable state anyway. Grieving for her recently deceased mother, she clings to Greta. As she tells the older woman, she is known by her friends for her loyalty. She is like chewing gum – she “sticks around”. These remarks take on a very ironic resonance as Greta attaches herself to her and simply won’t let go.

In its own macabre way, the film is often funny. Greta has a tendency to play Liszt on the piano at the film’s most climactic moments. There is something comic about her extreme detachment. She is likened to Cruella De Vil but, as portrayed by Huppert, she is a very chic continental version of the celebrated villainess. Even when she is stalking and harassing her prey, she looks strangely elegant in her long coat and dark glasses. She can be clonked on the head with a heavy object or even mutilated but will never lose her sangfroid. In restaurants, she has a wonderfully high-handed way of dealing with the waiters and complaining if the wine doesn’t meet her standards. She can even throw a full-blown tantrum without losing her composure.

Jordan uses Frances’ wisecracking flatmate to help relieve moments of extreme tension. When matters are at their most fraught, Erica (played in ebullient fashion by Monroe) will always make some sarcastic observation to lighten the mood.

Greta starts in a relatively muted way but becomes ever more lurid. Director and co-screenwriter Neil Jordan is delving into the realms explored in Asian horror movies like Takashi Miike’s Audition or Park Chan-wook’s revenge films.

Looking as doleful as ever, Stephen Rea, who starred as the soulful saxophonist in Neil Jordan’s debut feature Angel way back in 1982, features here as a very dishevelled and melancholic private detective.

The irrational actions of some of the characters in Greta can be infuriating. This is one of those movies in which the protagonists seem determined to put themselves into harm’s way. When their tormentor is down, they will never apply the final blow. That means she keeps on coming back.

The screenplay (by Ray Wright and Jordan) withholds the background information which might have helped the film to make more sense. We learn very little until late in the film about where Greta comes from or what is driving her increasingly psychopathic behaviour.

On one level, this is a psychodrama about grief. Frances is so traumatised by the death of her mother that we half suspect she has conjured up the demonic Greta in her imagination. There are times when Greta appears to have near supernatural powers. Frances simply can’t get away from her. However, it is also made very clear that Greta is a flesh and blood character who takes a perverse pleasure in inflicting physical and psychological harm on her victims. She is not very nice to dogs either.

In its lesser moments, the movie descends into high camp but the diva-like performance from Huppert gives it an edge that most trashy B movies lack. The French actress has made relatively few English-language films since starring early in her career in Michael Cimino’s ill-fated Heaven’s Gate. This is one reason why Greta should be cherished in spite of its excesses and eccentricities. It’s a reminder of just what Hollywood lost when Huppert turned her back on the US studios all those years ago.