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First Hit:  There was something not real, or lacking engagement about or between these characters that left me uninterested.

There was a bit of noise about this film in the press. The idea of two women, friends for life, having two sons with whom they each have intimate physical relations is thought provoking. How did these mothers allow intimacy with their best friend's son?

That's what the film attempts to address. For me I was anticipating the moment when the intimate line was crossed and by whom. However, this is exactly what didn’t work for me. I didn’t see the pre-moment buildup that would have been needed for any of the characters to move into this sort of intimacy.

The film did a good job of showing the connection between the two mothers Lil (Naomi Watts) and Roz (Robin Wright) as they grew up together from young kids into adulthood. Their respective sons Ian (Xavier Samuel) and Tom (James Frecheville) are also best friends and grew up together as well.

The idyllic beach life on the coast to Australia adds to the surreal adventure this film attempts to take the audience on, actually subtracts from the intensity of the situation when Ian decides to reach out to Roz for affection.

Watts is beautiful and effective as a mother, but as Tom’s lover it didn’t quite work. I didn’t see the spark and alluring fire. Wright was gorgeous and seemed distanced from her husband as well as her son although there was an emotional flicker as Ian approached her for affection. Samuel was the person who most pushed this film and subject the most. His aching over his father’s loss and movement to be loved emotionally and physically by Wright was the films strongest character. Frecheville seemed to have more of a laissez faire attitude towards his intimacy to his best friends wife, but interestingly enough, he was the one to cement them all in the end. Christopher Hampton wrote the screen play that came from Doris Lessing’s novel. I don’t think there were enough story creating scenes to develop what could have been a strong film of what some would call taboo behavior. Anne Fontaine did well with what she had.

Overall: An interesting attempt to broach a controversial subject but it ended up being very vanilla.

Chloe

First Hit: A middling film which never fooled me for a moment by its supposed premise.

I love when I’m fooled by the premise of a film. Whereas you are set up to believe one thing but find out that it is something else.

"The Sixth Sense" was one of those films which did this well. I watched that film two more times just to see if there were obvious holes in the premise that I missed, there weren’t.

In Chloe we are given the premise that David Stewart (played by Liam Neeson) is having an affair. This is fueled by his wife Catherine’s (played by Julianne Moore) sneaking a look at his cell phone, his lack of affection, his nightly work meetings, and his charm with waitresses. She decides to hire a hooker named Chloe (played by Amanda Seyfried) to test her husband’s fidelity. Chloe reports back to Catherine about her rendezvous’ with David.

As Chloe’s stories get more vivid and sexual, Catherine becomes excited and eventually engages with Chloe in intimate ways. As the story plays out we end up seeing communication between Catherine and David would have resolved any misperceptions but then again the film wouldn’t have been made.

Neeson holds his part of the story rather well. Moore’s character needed additional background as to why she felt so threatened. Their son Michael, played by Max Thieriot, seemed out of place most of the film until his presence is required by Chloe to create a twist.

Seyfried was cute and somewhat effective as Chloe, but with little understanding as to her background we have no basis for knowing why she moves in the direction she does in this film. The story by Erin Cressida Wilson and Anne Fontaine is weak and doesn’t really have enough character background to create suspense. Atom Egoyan directed this film evenhandedly but either he didn’t push a strong story or had a weak story and did the best he could.

Overall: At best this is a video film to watch when you’ve nothing else to do.