Chloe (2009)

"Atom Egoyan doesn't flinch from exploring the dark side of curiosity.  Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"This is a high-toned erotic thriller, handled with style and some emotionally raw scenes, aiming for an effect that's pleasingly unnerving, if not outright arousing.  Liam Lacey, The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
"The success of Chloe is largely due to the contribution of screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson.  Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Editor's Note An untrusting wife attempts to prove that her husband is cheating by hiring an escort to seduce him, inadvertently endangering her entire family in the process. Catherine (Julianne Moore) is a respected doctor, and her husband, David (Liam Neeson), is a dedicated music professor. They've been married for years and have a teenage son together, but lately the passion has faded from their romance. The morning after David misses his flight home -- and the elaborate surprise birthday party Catherine had planned to celebrate his return -- Catherine finds a text message on his phone that leads her to believe her husband is sleeping with a female student. Her suspicions grow over the following weeks, and when Catherine has a run-in with an escort named Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), she hires the ravishing blonde to test her husband's fidelity. After each encounter with David, Chloe reports back to Catherine with all the sordid details. But the further the experiment goes, the less clear Chloe's motivations for taking part in it become, and the more the untrusting wife begins to fear that the situation has spiraled out of control. Directed by Atom Egoyan (THE SWEET HEREAFTER, ARARAT), this erotic thriller is a remake of Anne Fontaine's French film NATHALIE..., and was adapted by Erin Cressida Wilson.

	Julianne Moore
	Liam Neeson
	R.H. Thomson
	Amanda Seyfried
	Max Thieriot
	Tiffany Knight - Co-Star
	Severn Thompson - Co-Star
	Meghan Heffern - Co-Star
	Laura DeCarteret - Co-Star
	Natalie Lisinska - Co-Star
	Nina Dobrev - Co-Star
	Krysta Carter - Co-Star
	Mishu Vellani - Co-Star
	Kathy Maloney - Co-Star
	Tamsen McDonough - Co-Star
	Kathryn Kriitmaa - Co-Star
	Adam Waxman - Co-Star
	Sarah Casselman - Co-Star
	Milton Barnes - Co-Star
	Kyla Tingley - Co-Star
	Rod Wilson - Co-Star
	Rosalba Martinni - Co-Star
	Paul Essiembre - Co-Star
	David Reale - Co-Star
	Sean Orr - Co-Star
	Suzanne Benoit - Makeup Designer
	Mychael Danna - Composer
	Jacques Fieschi - Screenwriter
	Paul Sarossy - Director of Photography
	Erin Cressida Wilson - Screenwriter
	Anne Fontaine - Screenwriter
	Francois-Olivier Rousseau - Screenwriter
	Etheline Joseph - Hairstylist
	Diane Mazur - Makeup
	Daniel J. Murphy - Assistant Director
	Stephen Traynor - Production Manager/UPM
	Zinka Shankland - Hairstylist
	Philippe Blasband - Screenwriter
	Steve Monro - Sound
	Ryan Reed - Hairstylist
	Susan Reilly Lehane - Makeup
	Steven Muniro - Sound
	Arlene Duncan - Co-Star
	Julie Khaner - Co-Star
	Atom Egoyan - Director

Total Film
3 stars out of 5 -- "[I]t's Seyfried who gives CHLOE its beguiling contours." 02/25/2010

Sight and Sound
"Egoyan's direction and some fine performances ensure that CHLOE is a slick package." 03/01/2010

New York Times
"[T]here is no doubting Mr. Egoyan's exquisite taste: his frames are elegantly composed; his camera movements as smooth as practiced pick-up lines." 03/26/2010

Entertainment Weekly
"The film is Moore's story, and she acts the hell out of one sexy scene..." 04/02/2010

A.V. Club
"[F]or a good stretch, CHLOE neatly fixes Egoyan's career-long obsessions with identity and communication to the familiar framework of the erotic thriller" 03/25/2010

Chicago Sun-Times
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "Egoyan never makes a story with one level....It is a tangled web he weaves." 03/24/2010

Empire
3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he strong start, across-the-board good performances and Egoyan's intelligence keep it interesting." 08/01/2010

Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
Looking down from her office window, she sees a young woman who has the manner and routine of a high-priced call girl. This she stores in her memory. When her husband says he missed his flight back to Toronto and she finds a disturbing photo on his iPhone, she goes to the hotel where she saw the girl, makes eye contact with her in a bar, contrives a conversation in the powder room. With perfect calm, the girl explains that single women are not usually her clients. Couples, maybe...Director Atom Egoyan finds intrigue at the edges of conventional sex. Chloe, like his great film Exotica (1994), is about sexual attraction confused by financial arrangements. Chloe centers on a powerfully erotic young woman with personal motives that are hidden. It is not blatant but seductive, depending on the ways that our minds, more than our bodies, can be involved in a sexual relationship. It's not so much what we're doing as what I'm thinking about it -- and what you're thinking, which may be more complex than I realize...Egoyan follows his material to an ultimate conclusion. Some will find it difficult to accept. Is it arbitrary? Most of life's conclusions are arbitrary. I am not sure this particular story should, or can, be wound up in a conventional manner. It's not the kind of movie that depends on the certainty of an ending. It's more about how things continue. I have deliberately withheld much of the story, which Egoyan leaves for you to understand. His central fascination is with Chloe's motives. Does she act only for money? Does she do only what is requested? Does she remain emotionally detached? Does she get anything for herself besides money?...After you see the movie, run through it again in your mind. Who wants what? Who gets what? Who decides what? Whose needs are gratified? Egoyan never makes a story with one level. He never reveals all of the motives, especially to his characters. He invites us to be voyeurs of surfaces that may not conceal what they seem. Fundamental shifts can alter all the relationships. All the same, their sexuality compels his characters to make decisions based on their own assumptions. It is a tangled web he weaves. - Roger Ebert