'Chloe': A Bad 'Fatal Attraction' Knockoff
The new Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried movie moves at a slow pace and offers few surprises
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Every Friday from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m., I host a live call-in program on Bloomberg Radio, Station 1130 AM. After the show I try to catch a film that starts around 8:30 p.m. Chloe was playing at Cinema 123 near the broadcast studio so I decided to see it. What a mistake. It is a terrible movie.
Catherine (Julianne Moore), a gynecologist in Toronto, is planning a surprise birthday party for her husband, David (Liam Neeson), a college music professor. Their marriage is in trouble. She resents his flirtatious behavior with his female students, and he apparently has lost his intimate yearning for her.
Bizarrely, in a restaurant bathroom, Catherine meets a prostitute, Chloe (Amanda Seyfried). She hatches a plot to test her husband's faithfulness using Chloe as the bait. Chloe agrees to the plot accepting her normal fees for the night. The reports that Catherine receives from Chloe drive her wild. Adding to Catherine's woes is her teenage son, Michael (Max Thieriot), who lives at home. Michael, an accomplished pianist, hates his mother and tortures her by having girls spend the night with him in their home.
Much of the action takes place in Catherine's office which is separated from the patient waiting room by a glass door which is itself bizarre. Although the family is rich and lives a wealthy lifestyle, their money brings them no happiness. Their lives are empty. The picture contains a few surprises, including a lesbian love scene, but overall the story unfolds very slowly and in the end is unbelievable and of no consequence. Chloe reminded me of Fatal Attraction, which was a believable and captivating film. This knockoff is not.