Review: Chloe

Julianne Moore plays a top Toronto gynaecologist who suspects her academic husband Liam Neeson of having an affair. After a chance encounter with a doe-eyed young call girl named Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), Moore comes up with the idea of hiring the girl to actively pursue her husband and see if he bites into the forbidden fruit. The two meet frequently to discuss the developments, and Moore finds herself in a mixture of confusion and arousal. Max Thieriot plays Moore’s teenage son, whom she spies on when he’s with his girlfriend (Nina Dobrev).

 

**** WARNING SPOILERIFIC REVIEW AHEAD **** The original French film “Nathalie...” was an absolute scorcher right up until the near the climax when something appeared to be about to happen between the two main characters and...fade to black, before starting again the morning after. That pissed me off so unbelievably much, because it wasn’t just my imagination (or the fact that I’m a pervert), it was going to happen and the director decided we probably wouldn’t want to see it. Fuck yes we wanted to see it! Well, this 2009 remake from Armenian-Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan (“Exotica”, “Calendar”, “Where the Truth Lies”) at least fixes that one glaring flaw. And boy is it a hot scene, albeit a bit brief. Unfortunately, the scene doesn’t fit nearly as well in this remake as it would have in the original. It seems somewhat tacked on, and somewhat confuses things a little. There is no heat between the leads outside of that one scene, so thus it doesn’t really work. If the scene were added to “Nathalie...” and it was Fanny Ardant and Emmanuelle Beart doing that, it’d be a damn-near four star effort. When added to other flaws with the film, the result is probably lesser than the original, which was at least awfully steamy for two-thirds or so. And what in the hell is auteur Egoyan doing remaking someone else’s film anyway? I mean, it’s not exactly thematically polar opposite to some of his own work in terms of exploring sexual issues (“Exotica”, “Where the Truth Lies”), but there’s nothing terribly insightful going on here, even if it weren’t a remake. I also think that if not thematically wrong for the material, Egoyan is certainly tonally wrong. His films, even the ones about sexual themes, are cold, remote and arty. This needed to be sexy (it’s erotic-thriller material after all), sensuous, and with characters you could care about.

 

Although chilly, it’s a good-looking film, thanks to the work of cinematographer Paul Sarossy (“Exotica”), with particularly good (if not especially warm) lighting on show. Acting also isn’t the problem with this film. Julianne Moore isn’t usually a favourite of mine (as an actress or as a beauty), but she’s actually hot as hell here. Her performance is also perfectly fine for how the character has been written and how she has been directed. I used to find her a very chilly, bitchy actress but she has softened over the years (and comes across as incredibly nice in interviews, too). Oh, and her nipples are out of this world. That’s a damn important point I needed to make. When you consider her character’s seemingly unfair intrusiveness into her teenage son’s life, however it makes it hard to relate to her character here. She’s spying on the kid way too much, though it’s not Moore’s fault in the slightest, just the script. I get the idea that she’s an older woman and a bit jealous of young love, perhaps but it just rubs you the wrong way a bit. Liam Neeson (who deserves much credit for soldiering on with filming after experiencing a devastating, well-publicised personal tragedy) is the film’s most interesting and effective casting choice, I think. Gerard Depardieu was a believable cad, albeit one with somewhat unorthodox sex appeal (apparently he really is popular with the ladies, from what I here). Liam Neeson, by contrast, has a more affable, decent screen persona and makes his character a lot harder to hate than Depardieu did. I just wish he was in it more. Amanda Seyfried has a different kind of sexuality to her than Emmanuelle Beart did in the earlier “Nathalie...” Beart was off-the-charts smouldering, whereas Seyfried, for the gorgeous face and body she has, she also has more of an innocent look to her. She isn’t miscast, merely offering a different (and younger) interpretation of the character as dictated by the changes in the script (which really aren’t all that many, to be honest). Her bod is also smokin’ hot, by the way. My only real problem with her is that her intentions are far more obvious than in the original, but perhaps that’s because this is my second experience with this basic story. Is it really better that the twist with her comes out of nowhere? Or is it better that this version gives her much more motivation (or the audience much more of a clue)? I’m not sure. The film is essentially the same tale told differently. When you factor in the semi-“Fatal Attraction” bent this version of the story goes into (the most wildly different change from the original “Nathalie...”), like I said, this is the film that would’ve benefited from not having the sex scene and just had the build-up. By including what “Nathalie...” merely hinted at, it makes you like Moore’s character even less because the audience can see that Seyfried has a lot more invested in the relationship than Moore...except for that one scene. Given Moore’s behaviour towards Seyfried before and after the scene (i.e. She’s not interested in her personally, romantically, or sexually outside of her trysts with her husband), the scene itself makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If they had bothered to make Moore seem more attracted to Seyfried, then her turning away from Seyfried afterwards would’ve been so much more emotionally effective. I don’t buy the tacked-on idea that Moore wanted to feel young again as a motivation for sleeping with her, it’s just not dealt with enough to work. I also think the stuff between Seyfried and Moore’s son plays out very oddly. Sure, they’ve met before, but too briefly for the film to go where it goes with them towards the end. And when you think about Moore’s initial plan to catch Neeson out, it actually doesn’t prove anything. Or at least it doesn’t prove what she thinks it does. Even if Neeson screwed Seyfried, does that prove he screwed his student? Cheating with Seyfried when she has gone out of her way to trap him (by Moore’s order) doesn’t prove as much as she thinks it does. And in fact, whilst Neeson plays the role as more affable than Depardieu, the way the story unfolds is an entirely different matter. There is enough evidence here to suggest he did in fact cheat. Not prove, mind you, but suggest. It’s all a bit of a mess, I’m afraid. Maybe it wasn’t by design of Egoyan or writer Erin Cressida Wilson (“Secretary”) so much as everyone on set having a different idea of what was really going on and what motivated the characters. Either way, it doesn’t really come off.

 

Overall, this is a problematic film where things are a little murkier than need be, and the ‘bunny-boiler’ earns more of your sympathy than just about anyone else in the entire film. I don’t think that was the intention.

 

Rating: C+