LYT review: CHLOE

You should know that I am going to begin this review with what is, technically, a spoiler.

This is not common practice for me, but I do think you may find it forgivable in this instance. With that said, if you’ve already decided to go see CHLOE and want to go in cold, you can stop reading right about now.

If you’re on the fence, what I am about to say will probably sway you in one way or another.

Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried have sex. It is not PG-13 fade-out sex, nor is it Modest Actress Lite R-rating sex with conveniently placed shadows and /or camera angles that hide the naughty bits. This is full-on naked grinding. And it is glorious.

Since it happens late into the story, it merits a spoiler warning...can you ever forgive me for blowing the “surprise”?

I think you can. Some of you may even thank me.

CHLOE is based on the French film NATHALIE... (yes, the ellipses are part of the title), which, with its more cerebral approach to kinkiness, would seem more in line with what I’d expect from Canadian-raised director Atom Egoyan, who can often be as chilly and detached as his home country. Here, however, he’s gone balls-out Hollywood style in his approach to the material, adding more onscreen sex and a FATAL ATTRACTION element entirely absent from the source.

NATHALIE starred crème-de-la-crème French thespians Fanny Ardant, Gerard Depardieu, and Emmanuelle Beart, who are replaced respectively (and respectfully) by Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, and Amanda Seyfried. Moore plays a gynecologist named Catherine, whose marriage to university professor David (Neeson) has become cold and sexless. Everywhere she looks, circumstances remind her of what she’s lacking – a friend has a much younger girlfriend, her son Michael (Max Thieriot) is having girlfriends stay overnight, and a giant billboard for a CW-type show about hot young people is clearly visible from her own office. Also, she thinks David is cheating on her, and since his bookshelf contains tomes on Medieval German history side-by-side with one of Rush Limbaugh’s books, we’re automatically inclined to think he’s just the kind of jerk who would be sleeping around.

Having apparently not seen Mike Judge’s recent EXTRACT, Catherine proceeds with a remarkably similar plan to the one that backfired spectacularly in that movie. She hires prostitute Chloe (Seyfried) -- with whom she had previously had a mildly flirtatious encounter in a restroom – to seduce her husband and entrap him into cheating if she can.

Catherine clearly doesn’t know much about prostitution, or she’d realize that she’s dealing with possibly the world’s least professional one: Chloe apparently uses her real name, AND takes personal checks (she also kisses on the mouth, which most hookers tend not to do). Surely Egoyan, whose body of work suggests an interest in all aspects of perviness, would know this (the title character of the original NATHALIE... was upfront about being “in-character” and using a fake name). Because in time, Chloe becomes a whole lot more unprofessional, by getting emotionally attached to her client.

Soon enough, she reports back to Catherine that David has been receptive to the flirtation. Catherine ups the money, and asks Chloe to keep doing what she’s doing, not merely to further ensnare David, but also because the tales of his infidelity are turning her on. But Chloe isn’t exactly on the level, and starts inserting herself further and further into the couple’s life – rather hilariously, she comes on to their son, at one point asking “Do you have a page?” Presumably she means a Myspace or Facebook page, and we can guess that neither company approved of their name being mentioned. But even a made-up site name would have been better – as is, it sounds as if she’s inquiring of a prince whether or not he has a manservant.

Things escalate slightly ludicrously from there, which may be the point – it feels like Egoyan is rather deliberately going over the top in most respects. An early tip-off to this may be the house Catherine and David live in. Situated in what otherwise looks like a normal neighborhood, it’s a modernist nightmare of red cubes stacked hither and thither. All the better to locate a dramatic showdown in, my dear. [I have one significant issue, and it involves the manner in which voice-over is used at the beginning, vis-à-vis whose story this movie is supposed to be...but best I say no more about that here.]

Want the bottom line? CHLOE is total boner sauce. And believe it or not, when I told that to one particular critical colleague, he actually said “What does that mean? I don’t get that.”

I hope I don’t have to explain it any further here. But I will warn you, lest you too feel like renting NATHALIE... afterward, that it is NOT boner-anything, unless you’re the sort of person who prefers verbal descriptions to actual depictions. And if you are that sort of person, you’d probably prefer to read a book than see a movie anyway.

CHLOE opens in U.S. theaters March 26^th

 

Luke Y. Thompson is an actor, writer, and film critic living in Hollywood.