Chloe

Director Atom Egoyan has seen better times, and his latest film Chloe is more successful in concept than execution.

After 20 years of marriage, Catherine Stewart (Julianne Moore) is keenly aware that her husband, handsome professor David (Liam Neeson) has been unfaithful. Noticing his insidious behavior, Catherine resorts to hiring Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), an attractive young call girl, to seduce him and then relay the morbid details. Apart from these rendezvous—Chloe licks her lips and bats her eyes suggestively—little happens.  

There’s no enthralling story here, nor is the acting of much consequence. Neeson, who’s been unimpressive as of late, sees his sexuality and primacy in the film subordinated to the two main actresses and appears awkwardly aloof despite his character’s supposed scholarly charm.

And Catherine’s desperation as a befouled lover is confounding—what exactly does she gain from affirming the lascivious truth of her forgone conclusions? The film’s answer is the obvious erotic impetus: when Chloe recounts the graphic details of her sexual exploits with David, for instance, Catherine is so aroused, she incites a homoerotic tryst with the wide-eyed hooker. Sure, scenes like this are evocative—the camera fixates on Chloe’s loins—but the film lacks the flirtation that its eponymous call girl masters and it never even reaches the thrill of psychodrama.

There could be a charged subtext about the power mechanisms we use to express our sexuality, even in hostile ways. But waiting for any meaningful intellectual undercurrents to surface is futile here: it’s ultimately the burden of the viewer to over-interpret to that end.

Egoyan has greater directorial chops than this film would suggest—1994’s Exotica did Skinemax with a lot more style—but Chloe is downright neutered in comparison.