Chloe

"Chloe" is hired by Dr. Catherine Stewart to seduce her husband David, who has no interest in her anymore and even seems to be having an affair with a student. Her strategy is to confirm that her spouse cheating on her.

This film depicts characters threatened by loneliness, people trapped by their fears and expectations, relationships that define their underground psychology . We are of course very close to the film "Exotica", a film that besides sharing the theme of prostitution, hides a complex psychological plot behind a facade of erotic thriller.

In this atmosphere of ambiguity, the prominence of the city of Toronto and their winter locations emphasizes the alienation and distance among the characters. As the director explicitly stated, this Canadian city has in "Chloe" a deserved rematch, because it would have normally be the right move to set the story in Chicago, San Francisco or New York, thus having the prostitute presenting herself as what she is not.

For its part, the lack of vegetation emphasizes the modern architecture, particularly in the Stewart's house. Thanks to the management of resources such as glasses and their frames, shapes and lights of winter, we can say that in "Chloe" any glass surface is a mirror in which you cannot recognize who it is reflected.

Regarding the dramatic constitution of the tape, the location of the camera in the transparent Stewart’s house as well as the role of buildings and other structures in several of its frames, often mirror elements of  Catherine's personality. It would be strange not to imagine that this character could have been an architect, a designer or a judge.

Anyway, with or without changes, a pillar of the film is undoubtedly the work of Moore, who gives her character the perfect facets of sympathy and projection, control and obsession and fantasy and delusion. The troubled and fierce "Chloe" lacks of  history and horizon but not of depth.

Just as there are no reasons to feel the lacking of  further development of the character of David, it is such a shame that we don’t get to know more about “Chloe”, who, by the way and despite these big difficulties, takes life in an admirable way in the moves of Amanda Seyfried.

Director: Atom Egoyan

Writers: Erin Cressida Wilson (screenplay), Anne Fontaine

Stars: Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried and Liam Neeson