Chloe (2010)

Director Atom Egoyan, working simply as a director, brings some serious heat to this somewhat lurid and Euro trashy art house potboiler. Egoyan gives the movie a credibility that it might otherwise lack. It starts promisingly enough with a doctor (Julianne Moore) convinced that her husband (Liam Neeson) is cheating on her with his younger students. So to prove her suspicions, she hires a sexy call girl to seduce her husband. Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) agrees to help, but nobody seems to fully understand the magnitude of the consequences as Chloe inserts herself more into the family. For a solid hour, the movie offers some tantalizing drama about infidelity, doubt, and the nature of attraction. Then the movie shifts focus after a few tawdry, but effectively steamy, sex scenes. Sadly, the movie abandons the smaller-scale drama for lame thriller shenanigans. Chloe becomes a spurned lover pushed to the edge, like a third rate Fatal Attraction. At that point, Chloe just completely unravels into an unremarkable late-night Cinemax thriller. Even the gratuitous nudity feels tacky, and as a red-blooded heterosexual male, that’s a statement that makes me depressed.

Nate’s Grade: C+

About natezoebl

One man. Many movies. I am a cinephile (which spell-check suggests should really be "epinephine"). I was told that a passion for movies was in his blood since I was conceived at a movie convention. While scientifically questionable, I do remember a childhood where I would wake up Saturday mornings, bounce on my parents' bed, and watch Siskel and Ebert's syndicated TV show. That doesn't seem normal. At age 17, I began writing movie reviews and have been unable to stop ever since. I was the co-founder and chief editor at PictureShowPundits.com (2007-2014) and now write freelance. I have over 1400 written film reviews to my name and counting. I am also a proud member of the Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA) since 2012. In my (dwindling) free time, I like to write uncontrollably. I wrote a theatrical genre mash-up adaptation titled "Our Town... Attacked by Zombies" that was staged at my alma mater, Capital University in the fall of 2010 with minimal causalities and zero lawsuits. I have also written or co-written sixteen screenplays and pilots, with one of those scripts reviewed on industry blog Script Shadow. Thanks to the positive exposure, I am now also dipping my toes into the very industry I've been obsessed over since I was yea-high to whatever people are yea-high to in comparisons.

Posted on December 16, 2010, in 2010 Movies and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.

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