Chloe (2010)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on March 23, 2010 @ tonymacklin.net.

Chloe is an atrocious movie. It's artsy-fartsy-tartsy.

A female voice-over at the beginning says, "I can become your unflinching dream."

I flinched.

Pretension does that to me.

Chloe is contrived. It's about bratty, self-absorbed people. And it makes the 96 minutes seem like 96 hours.

Chloe is the heavy-breathing tale of Catherine Stewart (Julianne Moore) a gynecologist in Toronto, who suspects her husband (Liam Neesom) is being unfaithful. So, of course, she hires a young woman Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) to flirt with her husband and see where it goes. Wouldn't anyone?

The relationship between the two woman evolves. It leads to lesbianism, an heirloom, and the kitchen sink. Love is never having to say, "I make sense."

The script is full of talk-back-to-the-screen lines -- e.g., Chloe asks Catherine, "Do you want me to stop?"

Yes. Please, stop.

"I want to get out of here."

Maybe that was just somebody in the theater who said that.

Screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson has no idea of how people talk. The script is full of bad lines. Chloe says to Catherine, "People like you walk into my life."

Catherine says about her son, "I don't know what bothers me more -- he's sleeping with her or he isn't." Make up your mind, Mom.

The son Michael (Max Thieriot), on a cell phone, says to his Dad, "I used to make you tell me that story over and over -- how you met." Sure, Michael, you didn't want to hear about hockey. You wanted to hear about your Dad and Mom dating. "Over and over." You little creep.

Wilson and director Canadian Atom Egoyan try to be daring with sensual scenes and explicit language, but that envelope was long ago pushed.

Chloe is a remake of the French film Nathalie (2003). It was French sausage. Egoyan makes it into Canadian ham [Canadian for female body part].

The only fleeting credibility in the movie is presented by Liam Neesom. [Neesom's wife Natasha Richardson died in a skiing accident while he was in Toronto, but he finished the movie.] Neesom plays a professor of music. Intermittently he yells to perk up a fairly fatuous character.

Julianne Moore has another of her patented annoying roles. Catherine is flighty and obsessed. Amanda Seyfried disrobes and fondles as the mysterious Chloe.

A "surprise" denouement is awkward.

Chloe is a guilty displeasure.