I had a chance to see Chloe the last Thursday at the indi theater downtown which only shows one film at a time. They were losing it on Friday so decided to give it a shot since I had heard mildly interesting/controversial things about the film.
The film is about a woman who hires a prostitute to make a pass at her husband to see if he accepts after she fears he's been cheating on her. Julianne Moore plays Catherine, a doctor, wife, and mother who feels completely left out and unwanted from her husband and sons lives. When her husband David, played by Liam Neeson, "misses" his flight home on his birthday of all days Catherine grows suspicious and after finding a picture of him and a female student together on his pone the next day she decides to investigate the matter even further. That's where prostitute Chloe comes into play, played by Amanda Seyfried of Big Love fame. After Catherine sees Chloe leaving the company of numerous different men from the building next to her office she decides to meet with her and make her the offer to go after David. A test for David if you will.
As the film goes on we realize that Chloe has plans of her own and things start to get a little creepy. Catherine herself starts to slowly break down after she realizes the mess she's gotten herself into. The performances were okay. Julianne Moore is always good but she's really starting to annoy me with her whole pouty and whiney looking face. It's like she's crying in every damn movie she's in in almost every scene, it's just too much. Liam is always pleasant to watch but he's more of a supporting role here and we really don't see all that much of him as the film mainly focuses on Catherine and Chloe.
Director Antom Egoyan has always had a thing for erotic thrillers and that's mostly what he's made in the past with such films as Exotica and Where The Truth Lies. Chloe is in the same category for sure but it just didn't push the limits far enough for me. It just seemed to be holding something back and didn't go all out as the final scene for example seemed incredibly cheap and poorly done. But it is an interesting film to watch, the characters were entertaining, and although the ending was bad there's a pretty good twist about 3/4 of the way through the film that I never really saw coming. Chloe gets a 6/10.
