CHLOE (a review)

CHLOE (a review)

This is the movie by Canadian director Atom Egoyan, a sexy drama-thriller starring Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried. It continues Egoyan's dark exploration of sex and obsession from movies like THE SWEET HEREAFTER and the twisted-but-great EXOTICA.

The story: Catherine (Julianne Moore) thinks her husband (Liam Neeson) so she hires an escort (Amanda Seyfried) to test him. The escort tells her that her husband did in fact pick her up. As she tells Catherine each story of what is happening between her and Catherine's husband, the two begin to become closer with Catherine leaning on her as her marriage falls apart. Catherine tries to stop it, but by then the woman has become obessed with her and her family and it is too late to just stop.

It's a neat little thriller idea that doesn't quite play like a thriller. A movie like FATAL ATTRACTION sets up the Glenn Close vs Michael Douglas situation by about 25 minutes in and then we watch the fireworks from there. This movie plays it slow, almost like a seduction itself, focusing as much on the story of Catherine and her husband and their marraige as what is going on with the escort's growing obsession with her and her family.

For the most part, the movie works. It is in turns sexy and disturbing, as a good sexy thriller should be. One problem of it's slower pace is that when things do come to a head at the end it is pretty sudden and doesn't have the fully build. A bigger problem is that it feels more like a light version of the movie that it should be. For a twisted movie about family and seduction, it doesn't nearly push things far enough or get enough out of the what is there. For instance (***SPOILER***), the escort's obsession carries so far that she seduces Catherine's son, but that happens so late and has so little effect on anything. It seems to have no impact between Catherine and her son, which is already strained, and it doesn't really seem to accelerate things between the escort and Catherine is a way that couldn't have been done without it.

Still, there is a lot to like here. It's hard to go wrong with Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson, and the portrayal of the marriage that is having problems and the twisted relationship with the escort are some interesting stuff. It's just a shame Egoyan didn't work harder to push the material and shape it stronger so it could work fully as either a drama or good thriller.

*** RECOMMEND (as a twisted drama/thriller) ***