By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Atom Egoyan
Starring: Amanda Seyfried | Julianne Moore | Liam Neeson | Max Thieriot | Nina Dobrey
Country: canada, france, united_states
Year: 2010
Running time: 96
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1352824/
Bruce says: “CHLOE is a reworking of Anne Fontaine’s 2003 French film NATHALIE which starred Fanny Ardant, Gérard Depardieu and Emanuelle Béart. And CHLOE is one of the rare films that is more inspired than its antecedent. The plot is very much the same but the script is greatly improved – adding a more in-depth to the role of the husband played Liam Neeson , expanding the role of the son, and expanding the scope of the film to describe how infidelity plays out in family and society, in addition to a marriage. Atom Egoyan has been in a minor creative slump and CLOE marks the return of a master to the level of filmmaking his fans have come to love and respect.
“CHLOE opens with a surprise party that has one missing ingredient – the guest of honor. Catherine (Julianne Moore) has carefully assembled a house full of people to surprise her husband David (Liam Neeson) who is returning momentarily form a business trip. The phone rings. ‘I missed my plane,’ David tells Catherine. She returns to her guests with a brave face to relate the news. The next day, after David returns, his cell rings and Catherine sees the text message ‘Thanks for last night. Miranda.’ Is he having an affair? Is this the first time? Is this the reason David has been less amorous in recent months? ‘We used to do everything together; we couldn’t stand to be apart,’ David and Catherine observe. ‘When did we stop picking each other up at the airport?’ they wonder. Their relationship is not what it used to be.
“Catherine is flooded with questions that she feels need to be answered. She does not have the wherewithal to address David directly. By coincidence Catherine stumbles upon a solution. Looking out of the window in the office building that houses Catherine’s gynecology practice, she sees a blond girl getting in a taxi as she exits the bar next door. The next day Catherine is in the bar and the blonde (Chloe, played by Amanda Seyfried) is there with a man. When she goes to the ladies’, Catherine follows her. Catherine soon explains that she wants to hire Chloe to seduce her husband. ‘Most of my clients are married,’ observes Chloe. ‘He’s not the client,’ Catherine states emphatically.
“Initially Catherine seems quite liberated in her sexuality but that first impression gradually erodes. When her son (Max Theriot) has a girlfriend sleep over, Catherine goes ballistic. (Interestingly, Fanny Ardant’s character observes the same situation with decided nonchalance in the French version.) As educated and sophisticated as Catherine is she cannot cope with her feelings of jealousy and abandonment, her need to know the ‘truth,’ and her emerging attraction to Chloe which takes her by surprise. Chloe describes her sexual encounters with David in detail to Catherine. When we see Chloe and David together on screen, we are never quite sure whether they are actually having the encounter, whether it is merely a depiction of Chloe’s stories or whether it is just Catherine’s imagination running wild. Clearly Catherine is in over her head and she actually may be the perpetrator rather than the victim in this story. In conclusion, CHLOE takes an abrupt turn which comes as quite a surprise.
“Julianne Moore is better here than she has been in quite some time. Liam Neeson is wonderful in a role that must have been an astounding challenge considering CHLOE is the film which he was making when his wife Natasha Richardson tragically died as result of a skiing accident. It is almost impossible to believe this is the same Amada Seyfried that appeared as Meryl Streep’s daughter in MAMA MIA! 4 1/2 cats
“(CHLOE screened at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.)“
Thom says: “What an absolute thrill to see such great a director as Egoyan add to his already considerable glory. All fellow Chlotrudis member that attended the TIFF screening completely agreed. This was a free adaptation of the French film by Anne Fontaine, NATHALIE… (Egoyan usually writes his own screenplays). This enigmatic, melodramatic thriller entertains from beginning to end and manages even to feel exotic at times. After Catherine’s (Moore) husband (Neeson) fails to show up for a big anniversary party with a very feeble excuse she suspects him of having an affair. To catch him out she formulates a plan with a high-end prostitute that ends up causing disastrous results. Moore returns to her highest skill level in this terrific work and since she typically takes on a lot of less than stellar material she redeems herself here. Seyfried (a great presence in TV’s ‘BIG LOVE’) steps up her work to a high level, far eclipsing her performance in MAMMA MIA! This is a sharp departure from Egoyan’s previous work but kudos to his mastery of the material. 5 cats”
Chris says: “CHLOE opens with Catherine (Julianne Moore), a gynecologist, describing an orgasm to her patient while practically draining all the life out of one (to her, it’s simply a “series of muscular contractions”). Soon after, her professor husband David (Liam Neeson) appears as an impossibly irresistible object of desire to his female students during one of his lectures. Both scenes felt exaggerated to a point that when the couple’s fidelity problems came to the fore as they tooled around their ostentatiously ultra-modern home, I was left wondering why I should care about them.
“Thank goodness that Catherine meets Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), a high class prostitute half her age in a restaurant ladies’ room. Suspecting (with good reason) that David is cheating on her, Catherine hires Chloe to approach him in a café he frequents, flirt with him, and see what happens. When Chloe reports the results to Catherine, she is understandably hesitant to hear what has transpired between this girl and her husband, but voyeurism gradually gets the best of her. She probes Chloe for more details, and asks her to meet with David a second time. Soon, Catherine is living vicariously through Chloe, almost receiving an erotic charge by osmosis as she listens to her describe sexual acts with David with an intensity that eventually proves fatal for one of the two women.
“Working for the first time with another person’s screenplay (SECRETARY scribe Erin Cressida Wilson), Atom Egoyan directs far less cerebrally (and somewhat less elliptically) than usual, although his landscapes (in this case, Toronto’s posh Yorkville neighborhood) are as visually seductive as ever. At times, it all threatens to turn into the lurid, sexual melodrama past works such as EXOTICA only slyly skirted around the edges of, but a neat, late twist elevates it considerably from your usual FATAL ATTRACTION-derived trash. Moore brings a visceral depth to Catherine, just barely keeping in control as the world crashes around her. Seyfried both serves as a worthy foil and at times, a believable confidante, her expressive eyes (and lips!) providing a revealing counterpoint to her words. CHLOE is not great cinema like THE SWEET HEREAFTER (the impossibly high standard I’ve held Egoyan to ever since he made it), but at least he’s made a thoughtful erotic thriller and not another empty one—it’s also good campy fun. 4 cats”