Film review: CHLOE (Atom Egoyan, 2009)

A remake of Anne Fontaine’s 2003 film Nathalie…, Chloe is a film about obsession, sex, and the tangled web that lies weave. Julianne Moore is a successful gynaecologist, who’s accomplishments in her job sadly do not translate to that in her married life. Her son’s a semi-manic depressive teenager who shuts her out and her husband (played by Liam Neeson), misses his own surprise birthday party, under suspicious circumstances.

Her mistrust is further fuelled when she spies a picture message on his iPhone (there’s your product placement). Deciding to take matters into her own hands, she enlists upscale hooker Amanda Seyfried to initially talk to him, see what happens, but soon their encounters become more-than-just-talking as relations between the three become increasingly convoluted and messy.

Julianne Moore is one of my favourite actresses, and her performance in Chloe is the epitome of nuance and quiet heartbreak. The writing in the film is less than stellar, and she is the glue that cements the entire film together. 

Amanda Seyfried, with her huge doll eyes is nice to look at and everything, but her acting is a bit off here because one minute she’s sexy and smouldering, and next she exudes a childish air which does not gel at all with the character she’s playing.

Liam Neeson is good as the possibly philandering husband who simply gets sexier and more attractive to women with age, and the relationship between him and Moore is portrayed well. The relationship between Seyfried and Moore (which enters sapphic territory), not so much. The two women have no chemistry whatsoever and whilst men watching wouldn’t really mind, I just found myself embarrassed for both women in their cringey “sex” scene.

This claustrophobic three-hander boils and bubbles up nicely to its ultimately shattering denouement, and there are a fair few thrills along the way.  Perhaps because I'd seen the original, I knew what was coming, and thus the "twist" didn't surprise me at all, though to be fair, I think most of the uninitiated will see it a mile coming too.

For all the talent involved (Egoyan himself has covered sexual obsession so much better), I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.

5/10

My Eyes are Blurred, My Senses are Limited. Am I suspecting a familiar twinge?

Chloe, starring three of my favourite actors, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, and the very beautiful and talented Julianne Moore (50 this year, but still looking smokin'), is essentially a remake of 2003's Nathalie..., in which a wife, sensing that her husband may be philandering, hires the prostitute Nathalie to put his fidelity to the test. In the original, French screen icons Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Béart and Gérard Depardieu starred as the claustraphobic threesome. Here, Moore plays the suspicious doctor wife, Liam Neeson is the husband and Amanda Seyfried is Chloe, the epynomous escort. Of course, things never work out as smoothly as planned, and Moore's Catherine soon finds that she has let herself in for far more than she'd bargained for when she let Chloe into her life.

If the cast alone isn't enough to tempt you into seeing this film, there's also the rather exciting promise of seeing Amanda Seyfried ditch the sunny persona that suits her so well in movies like Mean Girls and Mamma Mia!, to see a darker side of her, which will surely test her acting muscles a bit more. This darker side even involves her in a scene wherein she seduces Julianne Moore's wide-eyed wife. My favourite cinematic wife of Liam Neeson's has thus far been Laura Linney, but it'll be exciting to see what a photogenic couple he'll make with Moore, and Nathalie..., whilst a little uneven, was a terrific watch, centred around a thrilling lead performance by the stunning Béart. With indie king Atom Egoyan at the helm, Chloe is sure to be a intruiging watch. When it hits cinema screens in the UK on the 5th March, I'll be one of the first ones there.