Chloe (2009) User Reviews

Something A LOT different for Amanda Seyfried....6.5/10

[IheartCali5882 · 6/10 · 24 May 2010]

This film reminded me of the 90's wave of erotic thrillers. It's got all the elements, including a healthy dose of softcore sex scenes which surprised me because Amanda Seyfried has such an endearing, innocent look about her. But she's such a good actress though that this doesn't prevent her from convincingly playing the role of seductive call girl Chloe. Julianne Moore plays Catherine, a gynecologist who suspects her flirtatious husband (Liam Neeson) is having an affair with one of his students. While at work Catherine observes Chloe entering and exiting hotels with several men so she can make a pretty good guess at Chloe's profession. Catherine decides to use Chloe as bait to see if her husband would submit to the temptation of an affair with Chloe.

And even though that is the basic storyline, there is so much more that is left unsaid; things Catherine thinks she knows but doesn't know about her husband, things Chloe knows about Catherine that Catherine herself doesn't even know; and in the middle of it all, the viewer who finds out we didn't know much at all about it all. The audience is pretty much kept in the dark as to what is really going on with Chloe until one small scene that immediately switches the direction of the movie. It's not one of those hokey melodramatic twists, but will definitely have you playing back the entire movie in your mind because it sheds everything in a new light. Chloe brags at the beginning of the film, in a voice-over narration, that she has the gift of intuiting what people want and need without it being said. She can be all things to all people. And unfortunately for Julianne Moore's character, Chloe is exactly right....just not in the way that you might initially think she is.

What makes this movie good is that it has layers. Just as in real life, people are inevitably much different than what they appear to be on the surface. In a lesser film, the characters and plot would be one-dimensional and by far less interesting.

Character-Driven Erotic Thriller.

[SamJamie · 6/10 · 26 June 2020]

Chloe is a 2009 erotic thriller film directed by Atom Egoyan, a remake of the 2003 French film Nathalie.... It stars Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, and Amanda Seyfried in the title role. Its screenplay was written by Erin Cressida Wilson, based on the earlier French film, written by Anne Fontaine.

Catherine (Moore) hires Chloe (Seyfried), an escort, to test her husband's (Neeson) loyalty towards her. However, Chloe falls in love with Catherine and the two women get intimate, which complicates their lives.

Chloe starts off as an intriguing psychological drama - and then begins to veer off into B-movie territory, although Egoyan packs in enough wisdom about the slow erosion of relationships, about aging, about female desire, to make the film utterly worthwhile. Moore and Seyfried provide the film with an intense breath of authenticity guaranteeing you feel the pain inflicted upon their characters by the plot's extreme circumstances.

The script's feminine perspective helps elevate the film from Egoyan's usual sexy (but satisfying) thriller into something a tad more insightful. The films seductive aesthetic is both distancing and, largely on the strength of Moore's translucent performance and Seyfried's boldness, forcibly intimate.

The film may be predictable and a little messy when it comes to the story-telling but Moore and Seyfried deliver enough hot chemistry to keep an audience's interest until the final moments. Between the strong acting, camera work, the subtle yet powerful score and a compelling story that lures us immediately, Chloe is ultimately a recommended watch.

A great cast with solid performances but quite predictable

[Shred_Master · 6/10 · 22 November 2017]

So, I had never heard of this movie before I just recently happened upon it on Netflix. I figured I'd give it a shot, because of the cast. Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried? Sold!

The plot was very typical of a thriller of this type. Woman suspects her husband is cheating, enlists a call girl to see if he gets tempted. Said call girl turns out to have a few screws loose, seduces the woman, lies about having been with the husband and when the wife says get lost, she doesn't take the not-so hint. I saw the ending coming within the first act.

The plus side is, the cast was at the top of their game. It was nice for a change to see Neeson in a more human role, as opposed to having to save someone using an inexplicable set of skills yet again. Moore is, as always, very believable and captivating as a neglected wife, seeking an outlet and a scapegoat. What can I say about Seyfried? First of all, gorgeous, in just about every way! Then, to see her take on the role of someone unhinged and unstable but still so erotic? As they said on Firefly, I had to go into my bunk after watching this. Couple that with the fact that Moore is still hot in her, what now, 50's doing an erotic love scene with Seyfried? Yeah that was worth the price of admission, or my monthly subscription rather.

So, even though the movie is far too reminiscent of The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Unfaithful or Gone Girl, it's still worth checking out for the performances and the skin as well.

Solid erotic thriller even if predictable

[imdbbl · 23 May 2010]

When David (Liam Neeson) misses his flight home from New York and, as a result, the surprise party his wife Catherine (Julianne Moore) has planned for him, Catherine is forced to swallow her disappointment and any suspicions and return to the waiting guests. Reading a text message sent to David's phone the following morning from one of his female students, Catherine's fear grows. More suspicious than ever that David is having an affair, Catherine seeks out Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), an escort, hiring her to test David's fidelity.

Chloe is a very solid thriller. Extremely engaging and incredibly entertaining, this story is ultimately about human nature and instincts. The film really grabs your attention and visually, it's quite a feat. The minimalistic sets and the way it was shot give this film a really modern and slick look. I feel like I should warn that there's quite a bit of nudity and somewhat graphic scenes but nothing outrageous or out of place.

Moore was absolutely terrific, she has proved her value already but here she delivers possibly one of the best performances of her career. Seyfried was quite a surprise. Her performance was subtle but very efficient and she seems a very promising young actress. Liam Neeson was not nearly as good as he usually is but it's understandable considering his wife died during the shooting of the film.

As I said, Chloe is a very solid and well done film. Unfortunately it has one major flaw, the predictably of the plot. I saw the twist coming from a mile way and I think any avid movie-goer will too. Still, it was a great watch, very entertaining and extremely well acted. Worth seeing.

7/10

Liked it,

[Samiam3 · 7/10 · 27 March 2010]

The Atom Egoyan behind Chloe is not the auteur behind films like Erotica and The Sweet Hereafter, but he weaves it in the right direction, and the end result may be his most erotic film yet. Ergo, Chloe feels like enough of an Egoyan film for me to argue that going commercial is not something that will degrade the quality of his work, (although I can't say much for Where the Truth Lies.)

Dr. Catherine Stewart suspects her husband is cheating on her, so she hires a local prostitute to seduce him, and report back with news. The things that Chloe has to say really turn on Dr. Stewart, and the two women start to fall for each other. But when Catherine decides it is time to pull the plug, Chloe isn't so eager to go away.

Chloe grows increasingly eerie, and profound, which draws you in, but in the last twenty minutes, it comes close to falling apart. The picture benefits greatly from by Paul Sarossy's cinematography featuring nuances of harsh light and warm colour tones, that highlight all the interiors. What we have here a classy looking B-movie. It is intriguing but not great art.

Egoyan moves into De Palma territory...

[MOscarbradley · 7/10 · 22 May 2020]

I have to admit I'm not really a fan of Atom Egoyan; his films always feel a little too 'antiseptic' for my tastes but "Chloe", a remake of the French film "Nathalie", works surprisingly well. A middle-aged woman, (Julianne Moore), who feels she's no longer that attractive and suspects her husband, (Liam Neeson), of playing around, hires a young escort, (Amanda Seyfried), to test his fidelity only for things to slip out of her control. It's a high-toned movie about the miseries of the rich which, to those of us who don't move in such salubrious circles, might not seem quite so miserable and it's set in a wintery Toronto.

Moore is superb but the real revelation of the picture is Seyfried who is outstanding as Chloe, (Neeson is miscast as an academic). This is Egoyan in De Palma mode; you keep expecting the inevitable lesbian relationship to develop and maybe even a knife to glint in the winter sunshine. Certainly Chloe's character fits the profile of potential movie psycho, either that or just a very sad young woman. If the plot twists are predictable, it hardly matters; this still looks and feels like a class act. Of course, it may be nothing more than high-class soft porn for the intellectual set. The choice, as they say, is yours but for once this was one Egoyan picture I could finally get my teeth into.

A Cop Out for Conventionality

[Bruce_Stern · 6/10 · 11 April 2010]

Convention triumphs over the unexpectedly exposed and terrifying truth of the self in Atom Egoyan's contemporary marriage mystery. A female gynecologist—a professional trained to look inside the bodies of women to reveal their truth, and perhaps something of their essence—suspects her husband of infidelity. She hires a Lolita look-alike call girl to entice her husband to determine his betrayal tendencies. The husband, a college instructor, and flirt, denies aging by intentionally missing his flight to home on his birthday, thwarting his wife's surprise birthday party arrangements. Their relationship has died—he now devotes himself to teaching, and is apathetic about the burned-out marital passion; she walks around in frustration, and flails about in response to her ineffectual attempts to her marriage emptiness. While it appears the husband is at least getting his physical needs met, the couple's mentally ill teenage son is obviously the only one in this upper middle class bare semblance of a family getting any for sure. His mother, jealous of her son's liaisons, but actually confronted by her own passionless life by his success, fails to connect, too, with the other familial male —her son. This woman, apparently successful at discerning the nature, or at least the core female health of her professional clients, has lost the capacity to know herself, and how to know herself. The prostitute reports her 'findings' face-to-face to the wife, which arouses her. The young woman, played effectively with big blue eyes and mouthy nuance by Amanda Siegfried, notes the wife's subtle arousal signals. The wife surprises herself with her responses to the descriptive tales of liaison, but the girl's got an unrevealed plan. The wife comes to the discovery of her true sexual nature, but without revealing the whys of her rejection of it, falls back to conventionality. The movie's ending cops out to the truth, revealing once again Hollywood's immense incapacity for encouraging honest living, or at least genuine acknowledgment of the truth, and the cost of its ignorance. © Bruce Stern, April 2010

Where's Shannon Tweed?

[SiggieHolmes · 5/10 · 8 March 2010]

A great cast are wasted on a pretty dire script. I suppose they thought they were making something insightful about the nature of trust or something, but it's a pretty average thriller which retreads the same path so many other thrillers have. I must admit I found it rather annoying that we are shown scenes that didn't happen (yes, I know none of it actually happened!). It would have been more acceptable to me if the scenes of Chloe's imagined relationship with the David, the husband (Liam Neeson) had been given a voice-over by her. That would have indicated that the action could have been taking place in her head.

It was very Hollywood, in spite of its pretensions to being meaningful. For example, Julianne Moore's character Catherine is worried that she's getting old, but this being Hollywood she's not allowed to look anything other than stunning for the majority of the time. Plus, she indulges in a bit of lesbianism at the drop of a hat because we all know that every woman has an inner lesbian dying to get out. Honestly, you could have cast Shannon Tweed in the role! Chloe's motivation seemed very vague. She's a prostitute, so I suppose we are meant to take that as shorthand for her being a DAMAGED PERSON. I came to the conclusion that she was after Catherine's wardrobe. Chloe wears endless pretty outfits (she seems to have a limitless number of coats) and has a shoegasm whilst being diddled by Catherine's son. She won't look at him, but fixes her gaze on Moore's shoes and clothes (she's being diddled in Catherine's bedroom btw).

It had a typical Hollywood ending, the outside influence who is trying to break up the family unit is killed. The only surprising thing about it was that she wasn't stabbed with the antique hair slide that we'd been shown several times. It reminded me of those yuppie-in-peril films of the late 80s/early 90s like Consenting Adults and Pacific Heights.

Textbook Egoyan

[MaxBorg89 · 8/10 · 18 July 2010]

If anyone was suited for remaking the French film Nathalie, it was Atom Egoyan, whose deeply twisted and occasionally perverse studies of sexuality, expressed through an apparently cold directorial eye, go hand in hand with a script that emphasized words over images (though there is a bit more flesh in the English-language transition). Hence the rather brilliant Chloe, whose prime accomplishment lies in its being less showy and pretentious than the director's previous foray into erotic secrets, the ambitious Where the Truth Lies.

Set in Egoyan's home town of Toronto, Chloe tells the story of the eponymous call girl (Amanda Seyfried) who is hired by gynecologist Catherine Stewart (Julianne Moore) when the latter starts to suspect her husband (Liam Neeson) is having an affair. Chloe's job is to casually approach him and see if he falls for her charm, thus indicating his propensity for adultery. However, as the girl's reports get more and more graphic, Catherine realizes she has put herself in an awkward position, one that it will be difficult to get out of.

A fascinating hybrid between psychological drama and erotic thriller (there's a vague hint of Fatal Attraction throughout the movie), Chloe is a rarity due to its attempt to analyze sex and its consequences without necessarily resorting to openly titillating imagery (a characteristic Egoyan shares with another Canadian maestro, David Cronenberg). The only downside of this approach is the same flaw that was much more evident in Where the Truth Lies, namely a deliberately slow pace that affects the thriller aspects but enhances the emotional poignancy, something that comes off as a paradox given the seemingly cold subject matter.

Furthermore, there is no coldness to be found in the carefully crafted performances: Neeson and Moore play the troubled couple with conviction, especially when things start getting more complicated (Moore's suspicious wife is a tour de force turn that should have received some award recognition), but the heart of the film lies, quite predictably, in Seyfried's hands, and she rises to the challenge by proving that she can do Big Love-style quality work on the big screen, embodying a complex, intriguing character light years away from her roles in Mamma Mia! and Mean Girls.

Overall, Chloe is a very good movie: sexy without being gratuitous, psychological without getting pompous and, like its title character, delightfully surprising.

Average movie unless you have an appreciation of lesbian action, which I do

[nrbarton · 7/10 · 11 May 2010]

Chloe is an erotic thriller that's essentially a tamer lesbian version of Fatal Attraction. Comparing it to Fatal Attraction it comes off badly as never really gets that gritty and tense, but, in its own right, it's a good movie with plenty to offer... like Amanda Seyfried's chest.

Whilst it was predictable and formulaic I certainly can't say I was ever bored. I'm probably being far too generous with my rating due to loving the lezzing up and Amanda Seyfried's rather excellent rack but it's worth watching just for the scene where the Chloe character has an orgasm over a rack of shoes; had me pissing myself. So for those who have an appreciation for Amanda Seyfried and her awesome rack and lesbian sex then this is a 7; if not then a 5.

Totally risible!

[Maciste_Brother · 2/10 · 2 January 2011]

CHLOE is the most risible film I've seen since, well, WHERE THE TRUTH LIES. The story is totally whacked and one wonders who in their right mind thought this story made any sense: a spoiled rich gynecologist believes her husband is cheating on her. She suddenly feels invisible: her husband is having sex with one of his young students. Friends are dating young chicks. Her son his sleeping with a hot chick in his bedroom. People all around are boinking chicks. The wife suddenly realizes "Heck, I'm missing on all of the hot action" so she decides to hire a hooker, with the idea of seducing her husband to see if he'll sleep with her, but it's all a ruse really because she's the one who ends up having sex with Chloe the Hooker. Chloe invents all these "hot" stories of her sleeping with the husband, to dupe the silly wife; these stories are so hot the wife decides to have sex with the hooker, because the wife feels she's invisible and by having sex with Chloe it's like some transference thingy going on and part of the passion the husband is sharing with the hooker the wife thinks she'll feel it too.

Got that?

The logic in the story is so whacked, it had me rolling on the floor.

First of all, I can't sympathize/empathize with the wife's pain/grief. She's a wealthy spoiled woman who hires a young woman to trap her husband. Nice character.

Second, the couple is a corny couple. Who cares if they don't make it or anything about their happiness.

Third, the two women, the silly wife and the hooker, are shown as being total nut jobs: the wife is gullible and accepts every little detail the hooker tells her without any proof of what she's claiming is real and the hooker is shown as being mentally unstable in the SINGLE WHITE FEMALE kind of way.

So basically the degrading screenplay portrays these two neurotic women as crazy, conniving, manipulating, narcissistic and out of control with their emotions. They both end-up coning each other while object of the initial target, the boring husband, doesn't even figure in the story. The two scheming women end up looking like two monkeys fellating each other at the zoo. I wanted to throw peanuts at them to make them stop. The ending elevates the level of degradation when Chloe the Hooker sleeps with the son in the parents' bedroom and when they're found out Chloe the Hooker then tries to seduce the wife again, which is seen by her son. The wife, embarrassed, literally pushes Chloe away to her death. Nice.

Though the story hints at Pasolini's brilliant TEOREMA, the storyline is straight out of the 1970s Black Emanuelle trash epics. Well, I would rather watch any Laura Gemser flick than this risible piece of "serious" filmmaking. The sex scenes in CHLOE were not hot for one second. Just unconvincing.

When the wife suddenly realizes the truth with those fake encounters Chloe has been telling her, she tells the clueless husband what she did: that she hired a hooker to entrap him and that she also ended up having sex with her (and in turn became the cheater here), the husband shrugs it off as if it was normal and OK. Again, this is me on the floor laughing my butt off. If I was the husband, I'd ask the wife to seek professional psychiatric help. I mean, the money she spent on the hooker could have been spent on something more important, ya know, like a brand new flat screen TV for that ridiculously overly designed house of theirs.

Even though it's a remake of a French film CHLOE reminded me more of the trashy Italian film called DELERIUM starring Mickey Hargitay. Same insane logic in the storyline with the women being completely crazy and degraded. The excellent Julianne Moore needs to get better projects than this laughable & embarrassing stuff.

Amanda Seyfried takes my heart away with her beauty an underrated tragic love drama

[ivo-cobra8 · 8/10 · 18 February 2018]

Chloe (2009) is really underrated love tragic drama. It is not that bad of a film I really liked it. I am not a drama love story fan guy but this movie really surprise me. It was not boring, over long or over dramatic like some movies are! It has a love drama and it ends with a twist and with a tragedy on the end of the film. Amanda Seyfried took my heart away with her acting, her beauty and I feel remorse for her character. I understood her character. I know now is based on the earlier French film Nathalie... (2003) I know that film is praised since Chloe come out, but who cares! I hated Dear John and Notebook I hated those films. The only films I liked in drama were American Beauty, Great Expectations that was a based on a novel and The Vow I like those movies.

Chloe this movie also has an erotic thriller about seducing and manipulating other peoples and it has a message. Don't belive anything and anyone you hear from people. Julianne Moore is fantastic and the women can act. She is awesome actress she is one the actresses I like and that's rarely by me. Liam Neeson is excellent as always I love this guy. I love Taken, Non-Stop in which Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson reunite again. A Walk Among the Tombstones, Unknown and Run All Night. I love the actor even in this drama he is so good. The thriller that was in this movie reminds me in other movies like are: Fatal Attraction. The Game, Disclosure and The Boy Next Door.

8/10 this is a tragic love story and that a good one, It worked by me I understand the character, the movie worked better then in other movies. In my opinion I like it! Atom Egoyan did a good job directing this movie. Response to a nutcase below me: the movie is not bland it is at least much better than your stupid dumb movie Batman Vs Superman: Dawn Justice. F**K Off!

A 6 For The Sexual Content

[isantistao · 6/10 · 5 May 2021]

I'm giving this movie a 6 for the sexual content which was very sexy, and was also really the only substance in this film and made it watchable. Otherwise it was pretty boring. But there was some hot lesbian action that was pretty pornographic. And other good sexy content too. But I don't recommend this movie.

The worst movie I have seen in a long while...horrible

[Magic_Rebo · 1/10 · 22 January 2011]

What's the point of watching a movie which partly consists of a person telling a story which eventually happens to be untrue? Especially if the lie is so obvious that the viewer (at least I was) is totally bored waiting for the truth to be revealed to Julianne Moore. Is the director trying to trick us into believing that Chloe's story is true? If he does I am a bit offended at him for thinking me so stupid. It's such a cliché-narrative, it has been done so many times in similar ways that you would have to make quite an effort for it to be believable. Its like watching a 6th Sense remake. Who would want to watch it if the whole final effect of 'oh my god, he is a ghost' is gone?

As the viewers, are we supposed to be surprised that it all was just made up? Because I wasn't surprised at all. I was just extremely annoyed because it all was so painfully obvious.

The director is trying to unfold a story which is already unfolded in my mind before the first half is even over because it is predictable and lame.

But this is just one aspect which I did not like. There is so much more wrong with this movie that I could go on forever.

I could accept the flaw I just tried to point out if the rest of the movie was watchable, but it's not.

It's a movie about a hooker (or escort girl or what ever you want to call her) who turns out to have emotional problems; so while in the beginning she is acting all cool and telling us so intelligently and poetically about her job, about the dos and don'ts and how to behave with men, in the end she turns out to not be professional at all, she is just a crazy bitch. Julianne has some emotional problems because she is getting old and feels unwanted. Her son is just some teenage kid who is not really relevant for the movie except for the conflict with Chloe in the end. Liam Neeson is just chilling throughout the movie not really harming anyone, he seems to be more interested in his work than in his wife...wtf

honestly, who cares?

I suppose there is supposed to be some underlying deeper meaning...But I think its a load of ...just a pretentious attempt to be smart and intellectual. All the director does is coming up with some random drama-conflict ideas and mixing them together. in the end you have nothing of value...

I usually don't write reviews on IMDb; this is the first one. The movie just created so many negative emotions within me that I had to post my opinion. Especially after seeing how many people liked it. I mean, that's fine. We all have different tastes, but I just thought I post one for the people who disliked the movie as much as i did.

A sexual thriller with a wow factor

[Gordon-11 · 7 May 2010]

This film is about a doctor who suspects her husband to be cheating. She hires a prostitute to test her suspicion, which spirals out of control beyond anyone's imagination.

If there is a sub-genre called sexual thriller, "Chloe" would be the prototype. The plot works very well, it's very engaging. The sexual mystery and tension are captivating, and the copious nudity does not even come across as over the top or contrived. Just as you thought you guessed the whole plot, it twists in the most dramatic way. There is so much suspense, excitement and mystery to the story. "Chloe" is a very good film with a wow factor, that keeps me glued to the screen.

A Well Made Psychological Drama

[atlasmb · 7/10 · 25 August 2014]

"Chloe" is listed under the drama, mystery and thriller genres. It starts as a psychological drama. Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) is a young woman whose path happens to cross that of Catherine Stewart (Julianne Moore). Later, Catherine--who is a gynecologist--observes Chloe on the street from her office window and realizes that Chloe is a prostitute.

The young woman is beautiful and she seems to possess some control over her life, which looks passionate and glamorous from afar. Catherine's life is rather sterile. She lives in a glass and metal house with a son who prefers to ignore her and a husband, David (Liam Neeson), who always has excuses to avoid intimacy and to be away from home.

Catherine suspects her husband of infidelity. When she watched Chloe on the street, she wondered if her husband could resist the young woman's charms. Chloe and Catherine meet again, in a bar. Catherine--who by now is obsessed with the conviction that her husband is disloyal--asks if she can purchase Chloe's services in an experiment to see if David will succumb to temptation. And thus the trap is set.

It was to be a one-time lure, but Catherine wants irrefutable proof and hires Chloe again. Eventually, Catherine gets what she is looking for. Or does she want something more from the mysterious siren Chloe?

Catherine's girlfriends think she is having an affair. The covert nature of the relationships between the three characters evolves into a dance of intrigue. The film now becomes a mystery. Chloe injects herself into every aspect of the couple's lives. What is her intention?

I don't think the story ever becomes a thriller, but the psychological drama plays out till the film's final moments.

The film is well made and well acted. Amanda Seyfried uses the ill-timed laugh and the inappropriate comment to keep the viewer off-balance. Portions of the film seem Hitchcockian. We are never sure where the story will lead and there are twists that surprise.

Slick yet unconvincing sex thriller

[svendaly · 6/10 · 27 April 2020]

Julianne Moore holds it up well, ably supported by Seyfried, but some indigestible turns of events that just don't land as true, which means it loses you. Premise fairly alluring up to a point

Pretentious.Laughable

[mcw6957 · 1/10 · 14 May 2010]

I have no shame admitting that I watched this to see Amanda Seyfried naked. After watching this I realized thats exactly the reason not to watch it. Among other things like it having no plot no point & no purpose. None of the naughty scenes are sexy,seductive or erotic. I actually laughed at how stupefying the whole mess is. Not even MST3K could find a bone of contention here. Watching Chloe fail frame by frame is painful. Amanda gave up Big Love for this Dear John & Letters to Juliet?!?!? I do not care for Atom Egoyan as a director either. His movies are sniveling & rote aimed at a higher class of snobs. Chloe is the creme de la creme of dull pomp and circumstance cinematic drudgery. Oh & hey Liam After.Life & Chloe both in the same year wow did they even have to pay you man?!?!?My new name for Liam Neeson is Ol dirty Bastard.Chloe actually reminded me of another laugh a minute stinker called Obsessed.The only difference is Obsessed doesn't take itself too serious so while its a bad movie at least its not pretending not to be.

Brilliant, sexy, disturbing, & extremely plausible script. Superior casting & directing [********** SPOILERS **********]

[arthousefilms-68-939717 · 10/10 · 8 September 2017]

I happened upon this movie after browsing my favorite Netflix section: "Independent."

Without knowing anything about the film, I was immediately drawn in by the stellar casting of Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson, all of whom are insanely talented and believable actors.

While some elements were predictable, it didn't matter because the execution on all levels was so captivating. A story is a story, but the telling of the story is what makes for the emotional connection.

For a slow-paced psychological mystery, this film does an outstanding job of delivering masterful scenes one after another.

********************************** SPOILER ALERT ********* SPOILERS ************

One of the hottest scenes in cinema is when Catherine has revenge-jealousy-anger- exploratory sex with Chloe. With so much tension wrapped in lead up to the scene, it is beyond satisfying to see it play out so solidly and solemnly. The big twist for me was that Chloe actually fell for Catherine. For someone who is detached from the people she has sex with, it was extraordinarily powerful when she let her guard down and fell for Catherine.

The weight of this scene and relationship was revisited in the end when Chloe forces Catherine to kiss under the threat of being killed. Even though it was super suspenseful (for fear Catherine would be murdered), it played as one hundred percent erotic, filled with all the emotions of the relationship between the two women.

Side note, the way Chloe managed to have sex with all three members of the family was completely brilliant and plausible. I loved the angst the film brought by letting the audience know how Chloe was sleeping with everyone behind each of their backs.

Then when I saw the credits roll, I was pleased to see that it was made by the director of one of my favorite films called Exotica. Atom Egoyan. An incredible director, he has a talent of bringing sex into real world relationship dysfunction.

My one gripe with this movie is that I wish, somehow, they would have all reconciled and that Chloe would end up healthy. I so badly wanted somebody to love her. The ending was a downer for me and I really wanted Chloe to end up feeling like she discovered a new place in the world.

Still, a strong film that I highly recommend for those who enjoy relationship dynamics.

Surprisingly decent movie!

[gallagherkellie · 7/10 · 12 August 2020]

I wasn't expecting much as it's rated 6.3/10 on imdb, but it was actually a lot better than I thought it would be. The acting by Seyfried and Moore was amazing. The sex scenes were done tastefully and with purpose, not just for the sake of putting boobs on screen. I'd definitely recommend this if you're wanting a bit of a drama/thriller/passion filled movie.

Intense, absurd and very funny

[roastmary-1 · 4/10 · 6 April 2010]

I like director Egoyan. "The Sweet Hearafter" is a truly remarkable film but "Chloe" goodness gracious me! Just look at the ladies wardrobe and tell me if you can guess what was in Egoyan's mind. Julianne Moore is fun to watch but she does what she usually does, she acts. I'm always so aware of her acting that I'm distracted out of the story. Liam Neeson seems utterly lost and the girl? Amanda Sygfried? Oh, mama mia! She looks like a grotesque blueprint for a new Goldie Hawn. I thought her was one of the worst performances I've seen in a long long time. I suspect Egoyan's intentions were mostly commercial. Naked lesbian scenes...close ups of boobs and the whole thing is irritating and annoying. The saving grace is the unintentional laughs it provokes. I laughed a lot I must confess but the film, shot beautifully, is an ugly mess

an intense drama about sexual identification and fantasy

[Quinoa1984 · 9/10 · 29 March 2010]

Sometimes a story needs to just let its characters go where the situation takes them. A situation isn't always conducive to storytelling (telling a story vs. a situation), but in the case of Chloe it's the way to go. The situation here is this: a doctor (Julianne Moore) is suspicious, perhaps even certain in some way, that her husband, an opera teacher (Liam Neeson) is cheating on her. As a way to find out, or just out of curiosity as to what he'll do, he approaches a call-girl (Amanda Seyfried) who has a knack for fulfilling any client's desire. When Chloe asks this woman about her husband being the client, she says he isn't. Her job will be to approach him, simply, in a cafe and see what he does. But according to Chloe, an innocent conversation (him being "friendly" as he is with a lot of women) turns into something else entirely... or is it?

This situation unfolds in a manner that is less about the conventional 'what will happen to their marriage' than what will happen to Moore's character, and Seyfried's Chloe, in relation to one another. It's one thing to have a character having sex with one spouse, but then having it with the other is something else. But that's not even what Atom Egoyan, the director, is fully interested in (although the sex scenes, when they do come up, usually from Moore's gynecologist imagining what her husband has been doing - and then herself actually with Chloe, are the most seriously erotically charged ones seen in a while). His concern, as a storyteller with this 'situation' is what is in the mind, what perception does to a married couple over time.

Catherine can imagine David doing these things, and we as the audience accept this as what really happened because Chloe, as the in-charge girl of the fantasy, makes it so. What do we perceive as who's wrong or right here, or is there even that issue? Eventually the movie Chloe turns into an obsession kind of story, where Chloe becomes enraptured with Catherine and their tryst together. A third-act revelation (I hesitate to call it a twist) makes things a lot more clearer, but does it matter if one sees it coming (I didn't, but I can see how suspicions can be had right from the beginning). It's Egoyan's way of seeing these people in these situations, how serious everything is taken but how it doesn't become too trashy; only the music by Mychael Danna sees to make it more of a sleek erotic drama when it doesn't need it (the best music cue has nothing to do with him, but rather the cutaway from one crucial scene to the next where Catherine/David's son is playing a perfectly somber piece of piano at a recital).

One part of it is the camera, sliding along and pairing up the imagery in certain scenes (watch as Catherine is excited in the shower of the image of David in the botanical garden, their juxtaposition is interesting). But another crucial thing is the performances. Moore and Neeson deliver the goods, and we hope they always do (Neeson especially has a very hard part, despite the supporting role as the husband, since he has to reveal what is necessary for Catherine to perceive, not so much what is fully realistic), and the actor playing the son fares less well, though that may be due to him being underwritten (or just not well written enough). But it's Seyfried who comes away here the real winner; she's naturally sexy and appealing, and can convey Chloe's ability to play Catherine so well because it's what she does. She's younger but wiser when it comes to intimacy and the power of suggestion, and the details in her descriptions, in the writing and the acting, is totally solid. We've seen Seyfried try, and sometimes succeed, more or less with material (i.e. Mean Girls and Jennifer's Body), and here is where she really, fully gets to shine in a three-dimensional character.

We know the players and we know how it might turn out, but you can't be sure. Egoyan eschews a Fatal Attraction third act turn for something a little more dangerous and exciting. I wasn't sure if Chloe was nuts, or just got off on her own superior way of playing this family of bourgeois Toronto-ites. It's about knowing what we know, and what we choose to do with that information as a sexual partner, a lover, a person, a friend, whatever, and that intimate fantasy element. It comes close to trash, but it really isn't. Taking its flaws aside, it's one of the smartest adult (though not pornographic) thrillers in recent memory.

This movie raises a lot of questions

[Lady_Targaryen · 7/10 · 5 October 2010]

Catherine Stewart is a gynecologist married to David Stewart, a charming university professor, for many years.She starts suspecting that her husband is having an affair, specially when she sees a picture of him with one of his young university's students, after missing the birthday party Catherine prepared for him. Determined to know the truth, she hires Chloe, a beautiful prostitute, to seduce David and see if he responds her flirts.

I watched ' Chloe' two times in order to understand the movie better and to notice the subtle actions from the characters. I liked the movie( though I didn't watch the french film 'Natalie' that I see many people saying this movie is based on) and I don't dislike any of the actors casted. I also don't agree that Amanda is not playing well her role, in fact, I was surprised to see her so seductive and beautiful, since most of the movies I watched with her, she was always the stupid or dorky girl. This movie is very misunderstood, and I know it because at first, I didn't get much of the context as well.

It also raises many questions, from loyalty in a marriage to getting old and less desirable. And there is Chloe, a character that many people think is bad, but I see her, as in fact, a sweet (although obsessed to Catherine) misunderstood girl, who is only searching for someone who can pay attention and to care for her.

The movie is very open to interpretation and kind of intriguing( I hardly think that many people didn't stop a minute or two to think about the ending). But since I like a lot movies that talk about the oddities of human psyche, it was kind of fun to discuss the movie on the board and see what other people were thinking about it.

Done watching movies made by Atom Egoyan

[bikerc · 1/10 · 20 June 2010]

There is something implausible and artificial about the main characters, with their sexual promiscuity and lack of any trace of moral backbone.

I am not saying that every one in the movie should be a saint, but the movie feels as if Atom has two bags.

First bag, contains the following concepts/ideas/patterns: sexual promiscuity, sexual craving, deep hidden lesbian tendencies, insecurity, desperate need to be loved, no financial worries, loyalty, nice house, lot of time time to kill, can bang any woman in sight, can bang any man in sight, be good at both, have or have not feelings when you do it, capable of love.

Second bag: woman gynecologist who spends most of her time inspecting other women's vaginas, university teacher, horny young guy, escort girl.

Atom probably closed his eyes and combined randomly items from the first bag with items from the second bag. And the result is this movie which feels like a soup made from the content of a pig's stomach.

As much as I wanted I could not identify with any of these characters. I found them and the universe in which they operated artificial and contrived.

Last night's review

[Tronc · 2 June 2009]

Saw CHLOE last night. I love all of Atom Egoyan's films and this was no exception. We were warned going in that the movie was going to be sexually graphic. While this movie was highly erotic it was done extremely tastefully. Other directors would have gone more and cheapened it. Toward the end I was afraid we were heading for another Fatal Attraction but fortunately did not go that way. This was Julianne Moore's movie, no doubt, and I am rather surprised at the amount of nudity she showed. And Amanda Seyfried was HOT! Liam Neeson is almost a footnote in this film but he shows what a professional he is to do a film of this type after his family tragedy. I think this was the most erotic movie Egoyan's done since Exotica. Highly recommended.