Chloe (2010)
Chloe (2010)
3/10
The best thing about Chloe is the performances. Let us get that out of the way. Julianne Moore gets to be understated which lately is a change of pace for her and she does a nice job with the film’s only fully developed character. Amanda Seyfried, one of the most exciting young actresses to be working today in my opinion despite some of her film choices does a really nice job keeping things seductive and ambiguous. She is easily the most intriguing and worthwhile aspect of the film. Then there is Liam Neeson in a pretty thankless role who manages to assert himself nicely amidst a film that does not have much time for him. Chloe however, amounts to nothing beyond the most predictable of psycho-sexual thrillers. It starts out nicely, the first 20 minutes easily being the best section, but flounders amidst conventions despite hard work from the actors.
Chloe, remade from a French film called Nathalie… is about a woman named Catherine who feels distance from her husband and is basically lost among her own observations of others people who have maintained or are starting passion in their lives. Her son Michael has started keeping a girlfriend over. She observes others in her daily lives that seem happy. She is a gynecologist surrounded by patients with active sex lives. Add to this that she suspects her husband is cheating on her with his students. Either way, they have clearly lost the connection they had and have become two separate people who happen to live in the same house. Through circumstances she makes the decision to hire an escort named Chloe to attempt to seduce David and to report back with the results. After that, there are a few twists and the film fully devolves into a series of predictabilities.
The main problem with Chloe is how conventional and mundane it is. It does not feel like its own story. It feels like a story that needs to hit all of these different plot points because other thrillers like it this work that way. When Chloe makes her first report back the dynamic becomes interesting but not very hard to figure out. It is pretty obvious that Catherine feels closer to David through Chloe’s descriptions of their rendezvous far before she says it. Then we get two more reports; by the time we get to the third report, there are only 40 minutes left. All three scenes are exactly the same but successively more intense. Chloe describes acts of transgression and Catherine looks very hurt and very sad. She does not want to hear more but she really does. All of this is leading up to a twist which can barely be called a twist based off of how obvious it is. After that, the film goes into its third act and becomes completely redundant and feels almost as if the film has given up entirely. The climax is anticlimactic and before you know it the film is over, prematurely resigning itself into its own hall of shame.
The film could have told the same story without feeling like it needed to be as obvious as it is. For one thing, the score should have been taken out entirely. The scene when Catherine hires Chloe has a slightly foreboding composition in the background. Tender moments between Catherine and David feature, well, tender music. It is all so poorly executed and if the film had no score at least the actors, editing and directors could have created their own sense of tension instead of being overshadowed by an obvious and uninventive score.
Outside of the performances there are other notable aspects of the film that are worth mentioning. Catherine’s character development is decent. There are some fantastic shots. One involves David looking at Catherine through a reflection. Another involves Chloe looking at Michael through a chain link fence. There are some nice touches of dialogue. The actors do manage to create their own tension which comes through amidst the other clichés working against them. The house Catherine and David live in is a stunning piece of architecture and deservedly gets many shots to itself. Also, the final shot is a nice touch that was very effective.
Atom Egoyan also brings his stability as a director to the table even with the mistakes he makes. I have seen 5 of his films with Where the Truth Lies being the worst; considerably worse than this. For some reason though, he is always a director whose upcoming films always fill me with excitement and anticipation. Just waiting for another The Sweet Hereafter I guess, a film I thought was one of the ten greatest films of all time after seeing it. It’s been 4 years since then and I need to go back and revisit it. Here, Egoyan’s direction is stable and he and the actors take the material very seriously which is ultimately what makes the film worth anything. Even though it means that the director and actors are all working against the script and the story itself, it gives Chloe at least some sort of merit.
Chloe is a film that had the potential to focus on semi-complex psycho-sexual relationships and could have even told the same story without being so mundane and predictable. Despite the actors’ efforts and a promising start, by the end it has become redundant and pointless. There are claims that the film is trash which is complete nonsense. If this had been from any other country nobody would even question the content or the way the content is handled (it’s handled fine by the way). The film is not trash; it is just not good.
3/10
The best thing about Chloe is the performances. Let us get that out of the way. Julianne Moore gets to be understated which lately is a change of pace for her and she does a nice job with the film’s only fully developed character. Amanda Seyfried, one of the most exciting young actresses to be working today in my opinion despite some of her film choices does a really nice job keeping things seductive and ambiguous. She is easily the most intriguing and worthwhile aspect of the film. Then there is Liam Neeson in a pretty thankless role who manages to assert himself nicely amidst a film that does not have much time for him. Chloe however, amounts to nothing beyond the most predictable of psycho-sexual thrillers. It starts out nicely, the first 20 minutes easily being the best section, but flounders amidst conventions despite hard work from the actors.
Chloe, remade from a French film called Nathalie… is about a woman named Catherine who feels distance from her husband and is basically lost among her own observations of others people who have maintained or are starting passion in their lives. Her son Michael has started keeping a girlfriend over. She observes others in her daily lives that seem happy. She is a gynecologist surrounded by patients with active sex lives. Add to this that she suspects her husband is cheating on her with his students. Either way, they have clearly lost the connection they had and have become two separate people who happen to live in the same house. Through circumstances she makes the decision to hire an escort named Chloe to attempt to seduce David and to report back with the results. After that, there are a few twists and the film fully devolves into a series of predictabilities.
The main problem with Chloe is how conventional and mundane it is. It does not feel like its own story. It feels like a story that needs to hit all of these different plot points because other thrillers like it this work that way. When Chloe makes her first report back the dynamic becomes interesting but not very hard to figure out. It is pretty obvious that Catherine feels closer to David through Chloe’s descriptions of their rendezvous far before she says it. Then we get two more reports; by the time we get to the third report, there are only 40 minutes left. All three scenes are exactly the same but successively more intense. Chloe describes acts of transgression and Catherine looks very hurt and very sad. She does not want to hear more but she really does. All of this is leading up to a twist which can barely be called a twist based off of how obvious it is. After that, the film goes into its third act and becomes completely redundant and feels almost as if the film has given up entirely. The climax is anticlimactic and before you know it the film is over, prematurely resigning itself into its own hall of shame.
The film could have told the same story without feeling like it needed to be as obvious as it is. For one thing, the score should have been taken out entirely. The scene when Catherine hires Chloe has a slightly foreboding composition in the background. Tender moments between Catherine and David feature, well, tender music. It is all so poorly executed and if the film had no score at least the actors, editing and directors could have created their own sense of tension instead of being overshadowed by an obvious and uninventive score.
Outside of the performances there are other notable aspects of the film that are worth mentioning. Catherine’s character development is decent. There are some fantastic shots. One involves David looking at Catherine through a reflection. Another involves Chloe looking at Michael through a chain link fence. There are some nice touches of dialogue. The actors do manage to create their own tension which comes through amidst the other clichés working against them. The house Catherine and David live in is a stunning piece of architecture and deservedly gets many shots to itself. Also, the final shot is a nice touch that was very effective.
Atom Egoyan also brings his stability as a director to the table even with the mistakes he makes. I have seen 5 of his films with Where the Truth Lies being the worst; considerably worse than this. For some reason though, he is always a director whose upcoming films always fill me with excitement and anticipation. Just waiting for another The Sweet Hereafter I guess, a film I thought was one of the ten greatest films of all time after seeing it. It’s been 4 years since then and I need to go back and revisit it. Here, Egoyan’s direction is stable and he and the actors take the material very seriously which is ultimately what makes the film worth anything. Even though it means that the director and actors are all working against the script and the story itself, it gives Chloe at least some sort of merit.
Chloe is a film that had the potential to focus on semi-complex psycho-sexual relationships and could have even told the same story without being so mundane and predictable. Despite the actors’ efforts and a promising start, by the end it has become redundant and pointless. There are claims that the film is trash which is complete nonsense. If this had been from any other country nobody would even question the content or the way the content is handled (it’s handled fine by the way). The film is not trash; it is just not good.
Horrorphile
As for Amanda's movie choices... Letters to Juliet. Need I say more?
20/20 Filmsight
Cinema is Truth
Cinema is Truth