Atom Egoyan has made a career out telling tales with strange sexual undercurrents. This story deals with how sex changes in relationships as those in the relationship change. Unspoken issues develop calluses, but become sensitive to touch. The resulting pain makes one act in uncharacteristic ways.
Catherine Stewart (Julianne Moore, THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT) is a successful gynecologist who is married to the busy professor David (Liam Neeson, KINSEY). She has planned a big surprise party for his birthday, but he doesn’t show up after he misses his plan back from a speaking engagement. When he sees a picture message from one of the students, she is convinced that he had an affair. Catherine finds the call girl Chloe (Amanda Seyfried, TV's BIG LOVE) and makes plans for her to secretly seduce her husband in order to catch him in an affair. This action will reveal things about their relationship that Catherine never expected. Moreover, she never expected what it reveals about herself.
A telling moment with a patient early on underlines Catherine's view of sex. She clinically describes an orgasm as a simple contraction of the muscles and can provide the woman with literature on achieving one. But another moment later in the film between her and her husband shows that she didn't always hold this chilly view on sex. As she has aged, her view of herself as a sexual being has changed and created doubts in her husband and herself.
This is the minefield of emotion that Chloe enters. Being a chameleon is part of her profession. But in a moment of truth, she tells Catherine that to do what she does she finds something in everyone to love. Even this seductress is looking for love. She is young and as young people often do, they fall in love quickly and deeply. This is mirrored in the Stewarts' son Michael (Max Thieriot, JUMPER) who is going through his own problems with sex and love. This creates problems with his mother who he barely speaks to.
Catherine's contract with Chloe allows her to see her relationship with her husband from a new perspective. What she sees is shocking to her and the audience. The story flirts with elements that sexual thrillers have dealt with many times before, but does so in a character based way.
Moore is always good in roles that mix the domestic with the sexual. Neeson makes David's nuances believable, which is crucial when certain assumptions are revealed. But the real standout is Seyfried. In choosing the role, she boldly steps out of the teen romantic leads she has been playing. But it's not the nudity or the sex scenes that make the part adult, but the range she brings to the character. She so easily could have come off as a cliche, but she brings a vulnerability to the character that is honest. She taps into a lost soul that makes us sympathize with her when a lesser actress would have made us repulsed... or even worse bored.
What struck me most about CHLOE is its sense of growth with its characters. And I don't just mean that they learn life changing lessons in the end. Catherine and David were very different people at some time before this movie started. That haunts the people they have become and starts the transformation into the people they will develop into. Chloe is the catalyst for better or worse.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
