Monday, April 26, 2010

CHLOE

After a few weeks of absence, Paulina's blog is back!  I have since gotten married and we are preparing to move into a new house so things have been very, very busy!  After not having watched a single movie for nearly two months, I finally saw Atom Egoyan's Chloe last night. 

I was drawn to this film due to two things - first, its title is the name of my sweet Labrador, Chloe.  Second, the cast seemed strong and the premise quite intriguing - a married woman, believing her husband is cheating on her, hires a call girl to seduce and trap him.

Julianne Moore plays the role of a successful but slightly self-conscious woman to perfection.  Her husband, Liam Neeson, a handsome professor, is aging gracefully and continuously flirts with his students.  Julianne is having a hard time connecting with him and is also out of touch with her son, Michael, who is going through a rebellious teenage phase.  Seeking reassurance on her marriage and perhaps some comfort, she sets up a meeting with Amanda Seyfried's character and plots her fateful scheme. 

The movie is fairly interesting to watch at first but very quickly there are moments that are preposterous and just impossible- chance encounters and text messages, eerie, overly ominous music playing constantly in the background, an out of the blue lesbian scene, a "shoe orgasm" (I'm serious), a reappearing hairpin far too reminiscent of a certain famous ice pick, an ultra modern house with lots of windows... 

There are many scenes of a sexual nature but without much eroticism- the whole time one senses that there is something brewing underneath that is not quite right.  I didn't feel much passion or tension and thought that everything was a bit too fake and trying so hard to stand out that in the end it was just plain bizarre. Amanda plays her character's psychotic side very well however, with her big, blue eyes and pale, innocent looking exterior. 

But despite good performances the script falls tremendously short.  Viewers who expect too much will get very little in return.  This film lacks the intelligence of Fatal Attraction or the thrill of Basic Instinct.  Sadly, Chloe gets worse and worse as it goes on, ending in a literal and figurative free fall.

My rating: 5
Fabio's: 5
Total score: 10/20