Three out of
Five stars
Running time:
99 mins
Chloe features terrific performances and improves considerably on the original film (2004's Nathalie) but the half-hearted erotic thriller element feels tacked on and fails to convince.
What's it all about?
Directed by Atom Egoyan, Chloe is based on Anne Fontaine's 2004 drama Nathalie and stars Julianne Moore as Catherine, a successful doctor who suspects that her music teacher husband David (Liam Neeson) is cheating on her. Hoping to put her fears to rest, Catherine hires beautiful prostitute Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) to seduce David and then report back to her.
When Chloe relates frank, intimate details of her encounters with David, Catherine is surprised by the intensity of her reactions and the two women become increasingly attracted to each other. But is Chloe everything she seems?
The Good
Seyfried is terrific, adding intriguing layers to Chloe so that you're never quite sure whether her seductive vulnerability is all an act, while Julianne Moore delivers a powerfully emotional performance as Catherine that is rooted in the character's fears of growing older, becoming distant from her teenage son (Max Thieriot) and so on. The film also scores highly in terms of shallow and obvious reasons – both leads are frequently naked and there's a lesbian sex scene that's certain to do wonders for the film's DVD release; there's also surprisingly strong chemistry between Moore and Seyfried.
The film is also beautifully shot, with Egoyan's regular cinematographer Paul Sarossy making gorgeous use of snowy Toronto. There's also a suitably gorgeous score by Mychael Danna.
The Bad
To be fair, Chloe is a vast improvement on Nathalie, which was tedious in the extreme. Erin Cressida Wilson's script fleshes out the characters and gives Catherine and David much more emotional depth, but the film's sudden detour into Fatal Attraction territory seems both half-hearted and unnecessary and fails to convince as a result.
Worth seeing?
In short, Chloe is beautifully shot and worth seeing for the terrific performances by Moore and Seyfried, but it's ultimately let down by a disappointing final act.