Ma Knows Best

Anyone who's ever spent more than three minutes talking to me (be they friends or delivery people) knows that few genres excite me more than that of the psycho-biddy, often better known as hagsploitation but more classily referred to as Grande Dame Guignol. While it tends to offer more promises than satisfaction, the idea of casting middle aged women at the core of horror, often as both protagonists and antagonists (and occasionally at the very same time) is so darn refreshing for a genre that seems to feed on the young. 

It's been a lifetime since Auntie Roo chased some children and Baby Jane twirled her ice cream cones on that black and white beach, but there's a slight chance of hope that we're reviving the trope, at least if mid-budget studio horror of 2019 has anything to say about it. 

Quick Plot: Young Maggie has just moved back to her single mom's childhood town. Being a pretty white girl means she has an awful hard time fitting in, so much so that it takes a full half day before she's getting drunk with the cool kids in the local rubble park. Since Maggie and her new brood (somewhat) look their 16 years of age, they hang around outside a convenience store hoping to find someone over 21 to buy their booze.

Enter Sue Ann, a lonely vet tech who finds herself charmed by the teenagers, so much so that she invites them home to party in her very own basement. Before the semester is over, Sue Ann (who prefers to be called the titular Ma) has become the high school's most popular girl, hosting regular keggers as she tries to reclaim her own teen years.

As you might guess, Sue Ann isn't the healthiest or well-est adjusted of all adult figures. Played with a ferocious juiciness by Octavia Spencer, Ma is the kind of character you rarely find at the center of a film, much less one in the horror genre. 

Horror filmmakers can be very, very dumb.

Much like (the much worse) Greta, Ma's first mistake is that it doesn't quite trust its older, phenomenal lead actress to fully take charge. Spencer is clearly relishing her chance at playing the big bad, and Ma is never more alive than when she's being belligerent to her boss (Allison Janney! Playing second fiddle to Octavia Spencer in a horror movie! THIS IS A VERY GOOD THING!) or flirty with Maggie's dumber than vaping fumes boyfriend. The problem, just like Greta, is that the film thinks we actually care about Maggie and her concern for a group of friends so bland I can't remember how many of them there actually was.

It's not the young actors are bad. They're just young pretty teenagers attempting to carry a genre flick that could be dancing on the pinky of its real lead.

Truthfully, Ma is kind of a mess of a movie. Scotty Landes' script apparently ended up at Blumhouse at the perfect moment for director Tate Taylor (The Help) to discover it might just be the vehicle he was seeking to give his friend Spencer a meaty lead role. On paper, Sue Ann was a white woman with no backstory. With Spencer aboard, the project evolved.

If only it had a little more time to collect itself. While Ma is certainly entertaining, the 100 minute runtime is so stuffed with hastily handled side stories that it's impossible to find any footing. Crammed into the plot is a tale of '80s slasher nerd vengeance, Munchausen by proxy abuse, a torture den, and Juliette Lewis learning how to be a casino dealer. It's a little much.

High Points

Octavia Spencer is a pure delight, and for as much as this movie doesn't rise to her level, her performance is still something to see. Some bonus points to the always reliable Missi Pyle as a mean girl-turned-middle aged blousy alcoholic mean girl who gets glorious comeuppance

Low Points

Mild spoilers: I didn't necessarily need the blood of youth on Ma's hands, but her choice of murder victims (ultimately all adults, some from her past, one inexplicably from her present) seems a little bit of a cheat 

Does the Dog...

There are MANY scenes of Sue Ann being iffy with four legged patients and casting threatening glances at Maggie's beloved old lab Louie's way, but thankfully (and unlike the here's-one-more-reason-to-hate Greta), no canine is irrevocably hurt 

Am I Overthinking This Or...

I realize my adoration of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? colors a LOT of how I see the world, but could there be anything deliberate in casting Dominic Burgess as Juliette Lewis's coworker Stu? It's the kind of unnecessary role that could have been easily eliminated with no real loss to the film, but perhaps the only real reason to maintain it in the final cut is how much Burgess resembles Jane's scheming accompanist played to such perfection by Victor Buono

Lessons Learned

The modern gingerbread house was not built on sweets but on non-expired pizza rolls

Horse tranquilizers are great for fighting migraines

If you quit before you reach the haggard age of 25, you'll face no negative effects of smoking

Rent/Bury/Buy

Ma is not a well-paced or overly well-made movie, but it's something different. There's probably just too much on its mind it wants to do to get any of it done well, but how often do you get to see Oscar winner Octavia Spencer doing the robot in a bedazzled hat before sewing head cool girl's mouth shut? It's certainly something. 

Shoulda Been Beta

Between The Company of Wolves, Interview With a Vampire, and Byzantium, Neil Jordan has always been a special filmmaker to the horror genre, and one with an interesting hand when it comes to women (okay, maybe subtract the incredibly male and even more incredibly erotic Interview from that list, but the other two are very much about their leads' gender). Even with the hugely negative critical reaction to 2018's Greta, I couldn't quite give up on it being something worth a watch. 

Sigh.

Quick Plot: Frances is slowly getting over the death of her mother, healing herself through the power of waitressing in a high-end restaurant and hanging out with her ridiculously wealthy roommate Erica (It Follows' Maika Monroe), whose father splurged for a loft in "New York City."

Let's get the first (of unfortunately, many) complaint out of the way: Greta's landscape looks about as Manhattan as a Hallmark Christmas movie. If my subways were half as clean as the oddly logo'd 6 train in this movie, I'd be using it to host mobile dinner parties.

Anyway, Frances is a nice girl from Boston, apparently too good-hearted for the big bad dangers of Irish York. One day, she spots an expensive purse abandoned on a pristine bucket seat. She promptly returns it to its owner, our titular French pianist (who might actually be the same damaged woman Huppert played in The Piano Teacher) who's so charmed by Frances's good deed that the pair become instant besties. 

Frances is obviously seeking a mother, and with her homemade sauce and sad widowhood, why wouldn't Greta fit the bill? If you've seen the trailer, you know that very quickly (within the 40 minute mark) Frances discovers that this ain't Greta's first time at the befriend-a-young-woman-with-good-handbag-taste rodeo. 

At first, Greta tries to win back the terrified Frances with phone calls and visits, standing like a performance artist in the street to watch her young friend as she waits tables in terror. It doesn't take long for Greta to reveal herself to be faster than The Flash and more durable than Michael Michaels. Also, she can teleport like the Leprechaun.

There is a point in this movie where the only earthbound explanation for Greta's ability to stalk Erica is that there are actually eight Gretas. Folks, I would have sent a check to Neil Jordan if this movie had a twist that involved evil twins or quintuplets. 

Sadly, there's apparently nothing supernatural about a Hungarian widow pretending for no explained reason to be French. Except, you know, the scene where she stalks Erica in an alleyway, sending pictures to Francine at every possible angle and, I kid you not, somehow--IT'S NEVER EXPLAINED AND IT'S MY NEW OBSESSION--ending up sitting smugly on the very bus that Erica hastily hops on to escape the Greta who was...following her. 

WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?

Don't worry: the movie certainly doesn't.

Look, based on every single professional and amateur review I'd seen of Greta, I did not expect a quality film. That being said, I did know that I was getting one of the genre's most interesting filmmakers directing one of the world's best living actresses in a juicy role. Surely, SURELY I guessed Greta would have its charms. 

What's so damn disappointing about Greta is how lacking it is in fun. Frances is a complete dud. We know Chloe Moretz can be a fiery performer, but the script's insistence on her character being sweet without giving her an ounce of snazz makes her painfully dull to watch, and pretty impossible to root for. The fact that is a recent college graduate enjoying a life of leisure in a million dollar loft doesn't even let us feel some natural sympathy for her. How hard would it have been to tweak her situation just enough to make her an actual underdog? WE ALL LOVE UNDERDOGS.

And come on: we all would kill for secret Isabelle Huppert triplets.

High Points

This is the kind of movie that has Vivaldi's Four Seasons playing at crescendo when Isabelle Huppert throws a table-clearing tantrum in a fancy restaurant. It's impossible not to feel somewhat giddy at that kind of moment

Low Points

And yet--AND YET DESPITE ISABELLE HUPPERT SMASHING WINE GLASSES--Greta is such a messy, aimless, energy-less movie that it's nearly impossible to find any satisfaction from its run time

Lessons Learned

People from Boston return expensive handbags; people from Manhattan call the bomb squad

The crazier they are, the harder they cling

The only thing less effective in solving crime than the NYC police department is Stephen Rea in a cameo

Dog Alert

I watched Greta on a plane and therefore lacked access to the invaluable "Does the Dog Die(.com)" information I needed, but if you couldn't guess that the sweet schnauzer mutt Greta brings home at Frances's urging would meet a tragic end, then let me sell you a bridge

Rent/Bury/Buy

I never thought I'd discourage anyone from seeing a movie wherein Isabelle Huppert spits gum into another woman's hair, but darn it: Greta is a slog. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a good feature-length set of deleted scenes and alternate endings, because there is so much plain sloppiness in its storytelling that I simply have to believe there were problems offscreen. 

Don't we all.