Susan Granger’s review of “Chloe” (Studio Canal/Montecito Pictures)
Artsy Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan (“The Sweet Hereafter”) has devised an edgy, “Fatal Attraction”-type psychosexual thriller that turns out to be little more than soft-core pornography.
When Toronto gynecologist Catherine Stewart (Julianne Moore) plans a surprise birthday bash for her peripatetic music professor husband, David (Liam Neeson), and he – accidentally or deliberately – misses his flight home from New York and arrives long after the guests have left, she becomes suspicious that he’s having an affair. That’s amplified after she intercepts a suspicious text message. To test her theory, Catherine hires a beautiful, high-priced, blonde call girl, Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), to engage David in conversation at his favorite coffee shop to see how susceptible and receptive he is.
Doe-eyed Chloe not only does what she’s asked but reports the brief encounter to Catherine, who instructs her to continue the entrapment trysts. Soon, insecure Catherine not only becomes obsessed with Chloe’s meticulously detailed, voyeuristic reports but also finds herself sexually aroused by this alluring young woman who, not unexpectedly, adds an additional dimension of betrayal by openly flirting with Catherine and David’s rebellious teenage son, Michael (Max Thieriot).
Written by Erin Cressida Wilson (“Secretary”), it’s a remake of Anne Fontaine’s French film “Nathalie,” starring Fanny Ardant, Gerard Depardieu and Emmanuelle Beart. Atom Egoyan has explored the kinky sexual landscape before in “Exotica” with Mia Kirshner; this time, he has cinematographer Paul Sarossy, production designer Phillip Barker and costumer Debra Hanson create a glossy, luxurious, evocative ambiance for an explicit lesbian seduction in the Stewarts’ elegant Architectural Digest-like home.
Raw, vulnerable and exposed, Julianne Moore’s jealous torment is convincing, as is Liam Neeson’s poignant angst. (His wife, actress Natasha Richardson, died in a skiing accident during the filming.) But it’s enigmatic, seductive Amanda Seyfried (TV’s “Big Love,” “Mamma Mia”) who leaves the most lasting impression, bestowing a prized filigreed comb on the true object of her affection. Nevertheless, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Chloe” is a tediously slow, sordid 4, emerging as the seedy story of a woman scorned.
