DVD Reviews

Chloe - Blu-ray Review

By Jeff Swindoll Jul 20, 2010, 14:03 GMT

$A missed flight...a lack of intimacy...guarded secrets... To Catherine (Julianne Moore), every detail suggests that her husband David (Liam Neeson) has been unfaithful. But there\'s only one way to know for sure. Catherine pays the mysterious Chloe (Amanda Seyfriend), an escort, to seduce her husband. She wants to know exactly how far she can trust him. But soon Catherine finds herself pushed beyond all limits as passions burn and obsessions$

A missed flight...a lack of intimacy...guarded secrets... To Catherine (Julianne Moore), every detail suggests that her husband David (Liam Neeson) has been unfaithful. But there\'s only one way to know for sure. Catherine pays the mysterious Chloe (Amanda Seyfriend), an escort, to seduce her husband. She wants to know exactly how far she can trust him. But soon Catherine finds herself pushed beyond all limits as passions burn and obsessions ...more

A woman has a mid-life crisis of sorts and hires a prostitute to confirm that her husband is the cheater she thinks she is. What she finds out is more about herself than about her philandering husband.

Catherine Stewart (Julianne Moore) is a successful gynecologist. She starts to notice a young lady going in and out of a nearby hotel with a string of men. She’s planning an elaborate surprise party for her husband David (Liam Neeson), a professor. He misses his flight and her party is ruined.

When he finally does come home he seems to have missed the flight on purpose and Catherine finds a picture of him with one of his female students when she’s snooping on his cell phone. He gets flirty with a waitress one night and Catherine runs into the young lady she’s seen from her window in the ladies room.

The girl is named Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) and is a prostitute. Catherine decides to hire her to test David’s fidelity. At first Chloe brings back reports of David’s flirting, but her second report gets juicer. Instead of being broken by the reports of David’s cheating, Catherine becomes aroused and soon she’s seeing Chloe.

However, things with Chloe are not as they seem and she begins to obsess on Catherine.

Chloe is a thriller that doesn’t offer many of them based on the plot. I spotted the finale twist in the trailer, but what it does have is some good acting from its leads and psychological questions.

Chloe is a remake of a 2003 French film called Nathalie. I’m not familiar with that film, but I’d imagine it has the same basic plot. Perhaps the tease of seeing Moore and Seyfried strut their stuff will be the draw, but you’ll also get a psychological thriller about suspicions and obsessions.

The film is well made and the high definition picture sparkling, but if you’re familiar with these sorts of plots you’ll spy the twist. There are films that play better, but this one does come at it from the woman’s point of view since we usually tend to play it from the guy’s point of view.

All in all it’s a decent psychological thriller… with some skin thrown in for good measure.

Chloe is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (1.85:1). Special features include a commentary from director Atom Egoyan, writer Erin Cressida Wilson, and Amanda Seyfried. All special features are presented in high definition. The 26 minute “Introducing Chloe” is a making of and there are 5 minutes of deleted scenes.

These do a good job of explaining the conflict between Catherine and her son (Max Thieriot). You also get the 2 minute theatrical trailer and previews for other Sony products.

Chloe is a well made erotic thriller in the art house mold, but the real draw may be the hot scene from its two female stars. It does ask some psychological questions so you may be drawn in by the salacious, but you may also question motives and fidelity instead.