Chloe
Chloe is a 2009 film by Canadian director Atom Egoyan, starring Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, and Liam Neeson. It is a loose remake of a 2003 French film, Nathalie, which starred Gerard Depardieu and Emmanuelle Beart.
Set in Toronto, Canada, the film follows Catherine Stewart (Moore), a successful gynecologist, who is married to David (Neeson), an opera expert with the distressing habit of flirting with virtually any other woman he encounters. Meanwhile, their son becomes increasingly difficult to control, leaving Catherine feeling alienated in her own house. After David misses a birthday party, Catherine becomes especially suspicious that he is cheating on her. This leads to the very bad idea of hiring a prostitute that she had encountered earlier (Seyfried) to test David's resolve. Soon, Chloe is graphically describing her encounters with David to Catherine. But it becomes increasingly clear that David isn't the one Chloe is interested in...
The film attracted some early notice for very tragic reasons: Liam Neeson was in the middle of filming it when his wife Natasha Richardson died in a skiing accident.
- All Men Are Perverts: Initially looks like this is in full effect, but scaled back a bit as David never actually cheated; he just thought about it, a lot.
- Batman Gambit: Chloe's scheme ends as soon as Catherine decides that she is done testing her husband. Chloe has to play off of Catherine's insecurity and arousal to keep it rolling.
- Bury Your Gays: The ending for Amanda Seyfried's character.
- Crucified Hero Shot: Crucified villain shot, although YMMV big time over whether she's the villain.
- Depraved Bisexual: Guess who! There's no wrong answer!
- Disposable Sex Worker: Arguably, the plot of the film.
- Fake Nationality: Unclear; the film is set in Canada, but whether Moore, Neeson, and Seyfried are meant to be Canadians is never stated.
- Fan Service: While nudity is somewhat expected in an erotic thriller, Amanda Seyfried just can't seem to keep her clothes on.
- Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: Deconstructed Trope quite extensively. While Catherine is driven to find out about her husband's infidelities, she is, all the same, turned on by the recounting of the details. When David hears about Catherine sleeping with Chloe, he doesn't seem all that upset at all. Of course, he IS a man and men often like that sort of thing.
- May-December Romance: Julianne Moore is almost exactly twice Amanda Seyfried's age.
- Platonic Prostitution: Initially, Catherine pays Chloe just to meet her husband at a cafe and see if he flirts with her. Later subverted.
- Playing Against Type: Amanda Seyfried, who usually plays the warm, ditzy character, as a Femme Fatale.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Natasha Richardson, Liam Neeson's wife, died while this movie was being shot. The story was altered a bit to reduce Neeson's workload.
- The Reveal: Chloe never actually met with David, and was lying to Catherine about all of their encounters.
- Stalker with a Crush: The title character.
- Television Geography: Averted. Toronto usually doubles for other cities; this time around it's playing itself.
- The Unfair Sex: If Catherine had been a man who had an affair with someone young enough to be his daughter, only to push her out a window when she became emotionally attached and refused to take money to just go away, he would probably be much less sympathetic than she is as a woman.
- If it had been a complete gender-reversal, he would have had an affair with a young man. It's hard to say if the film would have played out the same then, or how the audience would perceive it.
- Also when David is perceived as the one having an affair, he's treated as the lying, lustful bastard even though he was never unfaithful to his wife, but when Catherine cheats with Chloe and admits it to her husband, she's shown as the sympathetic one and never catches hell for it.
- X Meets Y: Nathalie meets Fatal Attraction, or, alternatively, Nathalie meets Crimes and Misdemeanors.