Review: Huppert adds class to stalker thriller 'Greta'

Imagine you're a 20-something living in New York City and you spot a particularly nice and structured green leather handbag on the subway. Do you report it to the MTA? Ignore it and move on? Claim it and its contents for yourself? Return to the owner?

For Chloe Grace Moretz's Frances, a wide-eyed transplant to the big city, it's obvious: You go alone to hand-deliver the bag to Greta Hideg (Isabelle Huppert), who, according to the identification card you find, is a tiny, nice-looking woman in her 60s. This is the first of many mistakes Frances makes in writer and director Neil Jordan's ("The Crying Game," ''Michael Collins") stylish and knowingly over-the-top "Greta ," a dark, Brian De Palma-esque fairy tale about the dangers of trusting a lonely soul. She might just turn out to be a wolf, right?

The film starts out like a rom-com, introducing sweet Frances working in a fancy Manhattan restaurant and riding the train alone back to the spacious apartment she shares with her roommate Erica (Maika Monroe), a wealthy party girl with more street savvy than dear Frances. Erica suggests they take the cash in the purse and use it for colonics. But Frances, who recently lost her own mother, wants to do what she considers the right thing and before you know it, she and Greta are fast friends and it's nice for a while! They take walks in the city, have long talks about life over homemade meals and red wine, and even adopt a dog for Greta. It's only when Frances stumbles on something that frightens her enough to ghost Greta that things get bad.

This image released by Focus Features shows Isabelle Huppert in a scene from "Greta." (Patrick RedmondFocus Features via AP)

Greta, a widow and mother to an estranged daughter, lives in one of those impossible old city houses that's been so built up around, it's almost hidden now. Inside is a cozy, but decaying mishmash of elegant vintage wares — threadbare rugs, torn upholstery and black-and-white photos in dusty silver frames that looks like it belongs to a 95-year-old, not a 65-year old. (My first thought was, "Is this Greta's mother's home?")

It's a not so subtle metaphor for the societal invisibility of the aging woman and a theme of this otherwise berserk but enjoyable film that I'm having trouble reconciling. First, because Huppert isn't nearly as old as the film seems to want her to be, and second because perhaps narratives further alienating older people by casting them as creepy and crazy outsiders are kind of evil. Is it because it's written by men (Ray Wright and Jordan are co-credited as the screenwriters)? It's possible considering how ridiculous and underdeveloped a character like Erica is.

But Huppert seems to be enjoying herself fully leaning into Greta's insanity, so perhaps this one can get a pass. She helps elevate the film from its self-consciously B-movie roots to be something that's actually pretty good. Her descent into madness is truly delightful to watch, and she's very good at making you think up to the very last minute that maybe Frances really is overreacting. What threat could a 65-year-old classical music-loving waif in gloves and tweed really pose when she's ordering a kir royale at a nice restaurant?

This image released by Focus Features shows Isabelle Huppert in a scene from "Greta." ( Jonathan HessionFocus Features via AP)

Moretz is solid as Frances, and it's honestly nice to see her play someone earnest for once. She seems to have gotten into a little bit of a typecasting rut as jaded mean girls, and this is a pleasant and promising departure from that.

The film gets really insane in the third act, but it keeps moving and is swiftly resolved (with mercifully minimal gore). Don't go into this expecting some feminist treatise though. "Greta" is about as retrograde as you can get, but accepting that, it's also tremendously silly and kind of a blast.

"Greta," a Focus Features release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for "for some violence and disturbing images." Running time: 98 minutes. Three stars out of four.

This image released by Focus Features shows Isabelle Huppert in a scene from "Greta." ( Jonathan HessionFocus Features via AP)

MPAA Definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr

This image released by Focus Features shows Chloë Grace Moretz, foreground, and Isabelle Huppert in a scene from "Greta." ( Jonathan HessionFocus Features via AP)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Nationwide protests challenging Iran's theocracy saw protesters flood the streets in the country's capital and its second-largest city into Sunday, crossing the two-week mark as violence surrounding the demonstrations has killed at least 116 people, activists said.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. But the death toll in the protests has grown, while 2,600 others have been detained, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

Those abroad fear the information blackout will embolden hard-liners within Iran's security services to launch a bloody crackdown, despite warnings from U.S. President Donald Trump he's willing to strike the Islamic Republic to protect peaceful demonstrators.

Trump offered support for the protesters, saying on social media that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!” The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous U.S. officials, said on Saturday night that Trump had been given military options for a strike on Iran, but hadn’t made a final decision.

The State Department separately warned: “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he’ll do something, he means it.”

Online videos sent out of Iran, likely using Starlink satellite transmitters, purportedly showed demonstrators gathering in northern Tehran's Punak neighborhood. There, it appeared authorities shut off streets, with protesters waving their lit mobile phones. Others banged metal while fireworks went off.

Other footage purportedly showed demonstrators peacefully marching down a street and others honking their car horns on the street.

In Mashhad, Iran's second-largest city, some 725 kilometers (450 miles) northeast of Tehran, footage purported to show protesters confronting security forces. Flaming debris and dumpsters could be seen in the street, blocking the road. Mashhad is home to the Imam Reza shrine, the holiest in Shiite Islam, making the protests there carry heavy significance for the country's theocracy.

Protests also appeared to happen in Kerman, 800 kilometers (500 miles) southeast of Tehran.

Iranian state television on Sunday morning took a page from demonstrators, having their correspondents appear on streets in several cities to show calm areas with a date stamp shown on screen. Tehran and Mashhad were not included. They also showed pro-government demonstrations in Qom and Qazvin.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has signaled a coming clampdown, despite U.S. warnings. Tehran escalated its threats Saturday, with Iran’s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, warning that anyone taking part in protests will be considered an “enemy of God,” a death-penalty charge. The statement carried by Iranian state television said even those who “helped rioters” would face the charge.

Iran’s theocracy cut off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls on Thursday, though it allowed some state-owned and semiofficial media to publish. Qatar’s state-funded Al Jazeera news network reported live from Iran, but they appeared to be the only major foreign outlet able to work.

Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who called for protests Thursday and Friday, asked in his latest message for demonstrators to take to the streets Saturday and Sunday. He urged protesters to carry Iran’s old lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of the shah to “claim public spaces as your own.”

Pahlavi’s support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, but it isn’t clear whether that’s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)