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.