User reviews

This movie really gives a wide range of different thoughts, feelings, actions and things you might bump into in life. With excellent acting, brilliant filming and music that calms your mind, it's a home run. Hilary Duff goes beyond any movie you have ever seen her in, and delivers a performance worthy an Acadamy award, and with help from fantastic actors such as Evan Ross, Micheal Murphy, Melissa Leo and the always wonderful Ellen Burstyn, there is no doubt this movie is going to become dear to many people.

This movie suits for everybody who has ever been young and confused, and offers a lot for the audience. Everyone will find something they like about this movie, or else they just won't admit it. Get yourself some fuel for thought, and watch this movie, you won't regret it.

Hilary Duff does a full 180 to her filmography! She's not the cutesy Disney-fied girl from her previous teen idol era flicks, now she's a snarky brunette named Greta with a nihilistic perspective of the world. Now this 17 year old nightmare is sent away to her conservative grandparents (Ellen Burstyn and Michael Murphy) coastal community for the summer by her absent mother (Melissa Leo) whose more focused on her third marriage.

The main actors make a great presence, especially Duff who truly sells a mature performance and is now a fully fledged adult actor with the support of the veteran actors.

6/2/18. Greta (Duff) is the nightmare 17 year-old you wouldn't want to ever know. Feel sorry for the grandparents (Burnstyn and Murphy) who have been recruited by a errant daughter (Leo) who has her own issues to babysit their obnoxious granddaughter for the summer. Total drama all day, all night, all the time, Duff's character was extremely annoying throughout. Burnstyn and Murphy stole the movie, along with Evan Ross from Duff. Ross plays a young teen trying to get back on track with his life and can see right through Duff's drama and calls her out on it. Even though there was a happy ending for everyone, Duff's character was truly one who gives Adolescence a bad name.

This movie has potential. Hilary Duff is convincing as a teen who is struggling. The problem is this movie isn't really about suicide. It's really just about a teen who is disrespectful to other people and abusive to older adults (this is not okay).

I stopped watching in the middle because it was boring and cringeworthy to watch.

The actors were fine. The storyline has potential. But this is not an accurate portrayal of a suicidal teen. The problem with these types of movies is they stigmatize the problem even more. People are going to watch this and think all suicidal teens are disrespectful and rude when this is not true.

I'll probably get "not helpful" votes for posting this. It's also the truth.

I will not go into the plot of the movie too much as I believe you can look elsewhere for that information.

I will start by telling you that if you are expecting the typical Hilary Duff flick, you will be either very disappointed or pleasantly surprised. This is her most serious role to date and excludes the fluffy elements and leaves you with a Character who most viewers can empathise with as a lot of us have at one point in our lives held an extremely cynical and fearful view on life and growing older, even if we haven't come from dysfunctional families and experienced such difficulties as the character 'Greta'.

Hilary Duff narrates the movie in a way, through talking to the viewer and writing in her diary. I have always favoured films that are narrated by a character as you become more involved with the story and without Greta telling us what she is thinking and how she feels we could not empathise with her half as much.

The soundtrack is amazing and captures every moment perfectly. My advice is to watch this film at night when you're feeling mellow and reflective, it will in no doubt drift you off into a bittersweet melancholy. It is artistic, gripping and is free of dull time-filling moments that have no relevance to the story or characters that are being portrayed.

I have not been able to stop thinking about the characters, the quotes, the music, the meaning behind everything Greta is saying. A truly amazing piece of work. 9 out of 10, for its genre in my opinion, this comes close to perfection.

This small independent movie was probably the least hyped movie Hilary Duff has had and it's ironically also her best (imo of course). Greta is sarcastic but not over the top witty that it becomes annoying (alas Juno - sorry Juno fans, I disliked that character). I feel a part of this can be attributed to Hilary's girl-next-door look turned brat delivery. I can imagine other actresses of Hilary's ilk trying out this role and not succeeding as well as she has. The character's narcissistic flaws are shown but a part of you likes her because of it. Her selfishness juxtaposed with her tolerant grandparents is fun to watch but also kind of sad and sorrowful when you realize why Greta misses her father and acts the way she does. The tension is nicely subtle and with modestly effective emphasis on supporting characters. Although the title itself features the main character's name, I liked the fact each supporting character is also appointed their own personal back story and just how this all comes into play with Greta's decision.

The performances were delicately fine. Hilary, well what can I say, she has won me over! Although I liked some of her earlier teen work, I don't think I took her for someone who could carry this film - and she did so well. Hilary definitely soars this time around! Ellen, Michael, Melissa and Evan are all strong support.

Props to Michael Gilvary for writing a simply funny and touching but not annoyingly sardonic and sappy film.

This is indeed, Hilary's best!

Greta (Hilary Duff) is banished by her hated mother to her grandparents (Michael Murphy, Ellen Burstyn) in the New Jersey seaside retirement town for the summer in an effort to save her 3rd marriage. She lost her father. She's 17 and vows to kill herself before her 18th birthday. She gets a waitress job at the local boardwalk restaurant to pay for cable TV and is adorably rude at it. She tries to shock her grandparents with the juvenile delinquent cook Julie (Evan Ross) but it backfires on her. They kinda like him and she likes him too. However she is still pulled to her darker side.

Hilary Duff is trying to do a little something with a slight edge to it. She does a good enough job although she still needs work accessing the darker tones in her performance. There is a little something promising going on here but it doesn't get beyond that. Evan Ross is not nearly charismatic enough. It's good that Hilary tried to go darker but she's not really successful at it.

After about 45 minutes I found myself apologising to my partner for having suggested this film. Our "viewing experience" was one of annoyance, endurance and waiting. Waiting for it to get better, but it didn't.

Greta is this annoying teenage brat that has been sent to her "grams" (as she calls both her grandparents), so her mother can patch up her third marriage. This and the fact that her father is dead is v. unsurprisingly revealed as the source of her "teenage angsty" pain.

She is so rude and awful to everyone that one waits for her to fall flat on her stupid face. However, since by minute 45 she hasn't yet, but rather has found a guy, who was nice to her despite and threatened to turn this annoying waste of time film into a sappy waste of time romance, we aborted MISSION ENDURANCE! We simply didn't want to risk possibly NOT seeing her fall flat on her face and wasting another 45 minutes.

Sorry!

This is a pretty decent coming of age teen movie starring Hillary Duff. Nicely shot, lovely costumes and make up and a good performance from Duff as a stroppy teen who gradually learns to love and be loved. It's not her usual Disney style role, she actually exhibits a quirky character with some substance which most of us that went through adolescence should be able to relate to. Fairly bland story line but if you're looking for a feel-good movie with a bit of teen romance then you can't go wrong with Surviving Summer (or According to Greta, the original title). Overall it's about a girl finding her way and learning that if you look hard enough, you can find you have something in common with anyone and you don't have to feel alone. It's a short run time, an easy watch, it all looks good and there are some funny, some heartwarming moments.

According to Greta . It looks like a movie especially and only made for Hilary Duff . She ignites a sparking flavour to this movie , and makes it wonderful . This movie sometimes shows me how I stopped living with my parents and started living with my grandparents . With no offense to parents of this world excuse me, they deserve our respect and love but within just boundaries. So Greta, a girl who's made a to-do list before she dies, ends up meeting someone who makes her believe that this isn't what life's about . I couldn't share the trailer cause it's pixelating etc . So ended up sharing this scene from it . And no waitresses shouldn't behave like that with their customers 😅😂.

I watched this movie with my daughter last night. Do yourself a favor and skip this one. Watch Georgia Rule instead if you like movies about growing up daughters. The character Greta is such an unsympathetic character (Is she playing herself?) that we both (young and old!) found it painful to watch. The whole story/dialog is not credible. We just kept going so we felt entitled to write this review. Painful also because we could not understand why a girl of 17 (also not credible, sorry Hillary) would consistently behave like she did and then all of a sudden turn soft on a random person. We did like the performance of the grandparents specially Ellen Burnstyn's performance. Can you imagine that you send a daughter who is like Greta to your elderly parents. That could be considered cruel, in fact it is just not credible again. We both do like serious/confronting movies but this is not one in that category.

Finally! I have been waiting for this film for two years. I remember it being filmed in early 2008, or might've been earlier than that. The delay has made me think the film was terrible and no movie studio wanted to release it. But I was wrong, the film isn't terrible at all. It's better than I thought it would be.

'Greta' is a quirky comedic drama that shocks, makes you laugh, and makes you go "awe" at the diverse relationship that Greta forms with her co-worker, Julie. Whenever the film started off, I was reminded of such films as 'Juno' and 'Georgia Rule', but this film is much darker than that.

The film is only 88 minutes, but it's entertaining all through-out and Greta takes you on a ride that'll keep you watching. Hilary Duff's acting has improved over the years, and it really shows in this specific film.

I could see why this film didn't go to theatres. But I also want to know why it didn't? 'Greta' definitely lands itself in my favourite movies of 2009. Great straight-to-DVD films are hard to find, and while finding this film in the recent straight-to-DVD films in the past years, it's like I've found gold.

The only problem I had with the film is that the beautiful relationship between Greta and Julie is left teasingly unresolved.

B+.

"Greta" is a girlish movie which has to do with a young suicidal and rebellious teen girl who move in with her grandparents during summer. There she will found out some new things about life which will make her think more about it and how she will get on with it.

I believe that the interpretation of Hilary Duff who obviously played as Greta it was not her best such as Evan Ross who played as Julie. Although this movie tried to combine drama with fun but it did not succeed on it.

To sum up I have to say that "Greta" it is not the best movie of Hilary Duff and I believe that her fans will be let down if they watch it, so I do not recommend it to you. Now if you want these kind of staff then you will have different opinion about all of that.

I like movies with Hillary Duff. Acting is not one of her strong points, but she lookes great and sweet and beautiful no matter what movie she's in. Yet it's a pity I couldn't give 'Greta' a better vote. The movie was just really, really bad. (I'm sorry Hillary, you looked great anyway! Wondering if she's ever gonna read this...) Duff plays a sweet, troubled child called Greta who's father killed himself when she was much younger. Her mother can't handle the child growing up and sends her too her grandparents (off course, it's a Hollywood movie and therefore not very original). Her grandparents are sweet folks who wouldn't hurt anybody. Greta hides herself behind a mask of sarcasm and tries really hard to shock almost everybody arround her. She even thinks of killing herself. But that though mask of her begins to break when she meets a boy...

The movie did make me smile a lot. There was a lot of melodrama and the acting was sometimes really awful (which in turn is very funny ;-)). Earlier reviewers compare the movie with 'Juno'. That is a comparison I totally disagree with. The scetches in 'Greta' vaguely remind me of 'Juno', but that is all. The acting in 'Juno' was great, the characters well played and the theme far more interesting en well thought of than 'Greta'. So, in my humble opinion, you can't compare these two movies with each other. And to end this review: Greta is just bad. That's all, folks!

Briefly, this is a surprising little movie. When I first started playing my little illegal download, I thought I would be deleting it right away--the beginning reminded me of Juno, and when I saw Hilary Duff''s name I reached for the mouse, but something made me keep watching after I saw Ellen Burstyn's name. I ended up watching the entire thing, and loved it. A shame fine little film's like this one don't get the recognition they deserve. It's quirky and well written, and well acted by all involved. Duff is quite good but for me the actor playing Julie really deserves special praise---he captured the reformed and formerly troubled teen perfectly, winning over not only me but Great's grandparents as well. I agree with one of the other reviewers in that there is one resolved situation Only gripe: what happened between Julie and Greta???