'Chloe' undermined by basic B-movie plot
Atom Egoyan's new dramatic thriller "Chloe" begins to go wrong at precisely the moment when the actress who plays the title character gets something right.
Amanda Seyfried plays Chloe, a high-priced escort who gets sexually involved with Catherine Stewart, a successful Toronto doctor played by Julianne Moore. After a passionate night together, Catherine tries to end the relationship by coldly handing Chloe a check, then ushering her out of Catherine's office. The camera lingers on Chloe's face as she waits for the elevator, and Seyfried's striking eyes come alive with hurt, anger and what clearly is a desire for revenge.
It's a nice moment. Sadly, though, it sends what had been an absorbing look at upper-class marital and sexual politics into a lame riff on "Fatal Attraction."
"Chloe" begins well. We meet Catherine, who has a successful medical practice but struggles at home with a distant adolescent son - he's in therapy for unspecified emotional issues - and a husband she suspects is cheating on her.
The husband, music professor David Stewart, is played by Liam Neeson, and he does seem to be quite the philanderer. As the film opens he lies to Catherine about missing a flight home so he can have a drink with one of his attractive coeds.
Catherine later finds a text message from the student on David's phone, which fuels her suspicions. So she enlists the help of Chloe, an attractive call girl Catherine meets in the bathroom of a luxury hotel. She pays Chloe to make a pass at David and then report back on David's response.
Chloe does so, and reveals that David succumbed to her advances. The tales that Chloe tells about their resulting trysts both devastate and arouse Catherine. The more her husband's betrayal hurts her, the more she feels drawn to Chloe, until the two have an intimate encounter of their own.
Egoyan, the Canadian auteur who earned an Oscar nomination for his 1997 drama "The Sweet Hereafter," handles this early material well. With expert control over pacing and mood, Egoyan makes the Stewarts' stylish, upper-class surroundings feel as suffocating as a prison cell. The first act of the movie hums with a palpable sense of dread.
Moore and Neeson, meanwhile, show excellent chemistry on screen. These two skilled actors movingly convey the painful emotional gulf that can develop between longtime spouses.
But then Catherine turns Chloe away, and the film degenerates into yet another "woman scorned" thriller. The plot grows sillier and more shrill, culminating in a ridiculous climax that borders on parody and an inexplicable final shot that had me scratching my head.
This is the first time Egoyan has directed a film from a script he didn't write, and you get the sense he never quite figured out what story "Chloe" is trying to tell. It doesn't help that Seyfried, who lit up the screen in "Mamma Mia," generates no heat this time around. Her Chloe remains an impenetrable cipher throughout, the one exception being that moment in Catherine's office.
Egoyan has been criticized in the past for making films that were too cerebral, too alienating. "Chloe," produced by Ivan Reitman and executive produced by Jason Reitman, is certainly one of Egoyan's most accessible films, but it's also one of his least memorable.
"Chloe"Rating: #9733; #9733; Starring: Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson, Max ThieriotDirected by: Atom EgoyanOther: A Sony Pictures Classic release. Rated R for strong sexual content including graphic dialogue, language and nudity. 95 minutesFalse1024683A high-priced escort seeks revenge after being pushed aside in "Chloe." False