Mar. 24, 2010 - Issue #753: Zion I

Prevue

Sputtering seduction

Chloe's characters remain frustratingly unexplored

Chloe opens with an utterly seductive shot of our eponymous character (Amanda Seyfried) preparing for her day—lingering, luscious and dark glimpses of her draping lingerie over her body, almost arming herself against the cold and repugnant world that will inevitably follow—but that seems to be the most that we will ever learn about this character, despite how important she will be to the events that follow. There are a few problems with Atom Egoyan's first crack at a script he didn't write, but chief among the film's issues are its unwillingness to delve into this particular character, a detriment that gives the whole affair the effect of something leering and tawdry as opposed to emotionally penetrating.

The character at the proper centre of the story is Christine (Julianne Moore), a very successful ob/gyn whose advancing age has nevertheless clouded her mind with doubts. These aren't helped by her husband David's (Liam Neeson) rampant flirtation with young women, not the least of which are with the students he teaches. Finally convinced of some kind of impropriety, Christine hires the young and perky Chloe to seduce him, as though solid proof might put some part of her mind at rest.

This weary suspicion, and indeed Christine's bleak state of mind, are well-explored, thanks in no small part to Julianne Moore, who wears emotional confusion as well as her designer clothes. But the preposterousness of the plotting overwhelms any real sense of middle-age anxiety. Chloe almost immediately develops a fatal attraction for Christine, and her exceedingly irrational behaviour even drowns a moral message about the dangers of trust in a sort-of cheap eroticism. Her increasing instability hits some familiarly tense notes, but with no real exploration of what's driving her, Chloe just seems like another girl scorned, albeit this time by a woman instead of a man. We feel none of her pain or anxiety, only Moore's, and so her sexiness seems designed more to titillate than provoke, and the heaps of drab moodiness that Egoyan brings to the equation do little to elevate a garden-variety thriller. V

Opens Fri, Mar 26
Chloe
Directed by Adam Egoyan
Written by Erin Cressida Wilson, Anne Fontaine
Starring Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried

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