Chloe (15) Director Atom Egoyan Starring Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Max Thieriot, Meghan Heffern 99 mins Two star rating People in glass houses shouldn t get involved in Fatal Attraction-style erotic thrillers. This latest film from
Chloe (15)
Director Atom Egoyan Starring Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Max Thieriot, Meghan Heffern
99 mins
Two star rating
People in glass houses shouldn't get involved in Fatal Attraction-style erotic thrillers. This latest film from Atom Egoyan is all longing looks and snatched infidelities in locations of architectural significance in Toronto, particularly the oversized greenhouse that is the home to cultured, successful couple Moore and Neeson.
The plot is the old standard about the woman who suspects her husband of being unfaithful and hires a prostitute to flirt with him and test his fidelity. It's all a bit Kate Bush's Babooshka, but the prostitute Chloe (Seyfried) proves to have her own agenda.
There's certainly a great deal of surface sophistication and the film has some of that gently gliding dislocation that is the trademark of Egoyan's films. But really there isn't much more to this than the kind of erotic thriller that used to be the Friday night preserve of Channel Five. The major difference is that, in those, the bodies would be more tanned and in warmer locations.
Moore gives a very honest study of a woman afraid of aging and fearful of all the things she lose.
By contrast, Seyfried has been handed a plot contrivance that works the whole bandwidth of male fantasy figures from the intelligent, coolly analytical professional lady of the night to the demented, unstable vengeful harpy.
I always admired the fact that Canada, the Land of Sombre Movies, not content with giving us one masterful maker of cold, darkly intelligent movies in David Cronenberg, has another one in reserve, in the event of an emergency. At one stage, Cronenberg was down to direct Basic Instinct 2 but nothing came of that and he continued on his own vigorous, aloof way.
Egoyan instead has embraced the erotic thriller route, but to no great effect. He brought some of his verve to Where The Truth Lies but Chloe is like a sterile parody.
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