Chloe Movie Review 2

By Anne Brodie Mar 26, 2010, 17:33 GMT

A successful doctor (Moore) begins to believe her husband (Neeson) is having an affair. She then decides to try and catch him by hiring an escort (Seyfried) to seduce him. Naturally, complications happen that put the entire family at risk. ...more

Atom Egoyan’s playing with our minds again!  The darkly talented Canadian director tackles infidelity and obsession and of course, sexual passion in his latest film.  Chloe is set in the fashionable enclaves of Toronto, not the Paris of the 2003 film Nathalie on which it’s based.  But it too is a meditation on the mysteries of love.

Julianne Moore plays a doctor who suspects her husband, played by Liam Neeson, of cheating with his adoring students and during business trips out of town.  She follows his texting and internet activities and watches him being inappropriately nice to wait staff and casual acquaintances.  We are certain he’s cheating too.

She’s in the washroom of a hotel where they are having dinner with friends when a glamourous young woman strikes up a conversation about how rotten men are.  We nod sagely when she agrees.  Later she encounters the young woman again and learns she’s a prostitute.  She’s repulsed and yet fascinated and decides to pay her to entrap her husband.

The seduction is a process that unfolds over several meetings, the details of which are passed along, woman to woman.  The prostitute lays out what he says and does and what she says and does which is painful to the doctor at first but becomes an unexpected turn on.

Soon everyone is having it off with everyone.  The story disintegrates into a kind of sophisticated peep show with lots of turmoil and angst that can’t seem to lift itself up out of grim regret.  It seems kind of infantile, adults running amok, guided by their privates, against lovely shots of Toronto’s best streets, museums, galleries, and restaurants, and then hating themselves afterwards.

There is a strange sense of unfinished business in the final act.  She has come to believe that he was not having affairs, which is confusing.  He had been portrayed as a reckless and impulsive lover but what’s the truth?  She is suddenly calm and the alertness has gone.  She smiles and conveys a sense of satisfaction that is not in keeping with what we’ve been shown.  Who’s cheating whom?

A psycho sexual thriller must be consistently up the ante and build to a nice climax.  It can’t start changing its tune as it comes to a close, causing startled audiences to laugh nervously. 

Atom Egoyan’s films are typically introspective and dark.  Chloe is both, but there are flashes of visual brilliance in the ever so carefully mounted environment of home, hotel, city, and streets.  Sure, he’s playing with our minds again, but he’s doing it prettily.

35mm drama
Written by Erin Cressida Wilson, Anne Fontaine (Nathalie)
Directed by Atom Egoyan
Opens March 26
Runtime: 96 minutes
MPAA: Rated R for strong sexual content including graphic dialogue, nudity and language
Country: USA / Canada / France
Language: English