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Amanda Seyfried has played good girls, girls in love, a fairy tale heroine, and even a mean girl or two. In director Atom Egoyan’s Chloe, though, she took a step outside good-girl typecasting to play a hooker with a dark side. But the film ends up suffering from her counter casting.
Julianne Moore stars as Catherine Stewart, a wife, mother, and doctor who feels like she’s losing touch with her family. Her son, Michael (Max Thieriot), won’t speak to her, and her husband, David (Liam Neeson), seems attracted to everyone but her.
Suspecting that David is having an affair, Catherine decides to investigate. So she hires a pretty young prostitute named Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) to approach David at his favorite coffee shop—just to see what happens. Chloe’s first report is pretty innocent: just a brief conversation. But Catherine wants Chloe to continue—to approach him again.
When Chloe’s relationship with David escalates, Catherine feels compelled to call off the arrangement—but even as Chloe starts showing up at Catherine’s office and chatting with Michael, Catherine finds herself drawn to Chloe and her tales of seduction.
For an actress like Seyfried, an adorable blonde twenty-something who tends to star in Nicholas Sparks romances and ABBA musicals, Chloe is a definite departure—a darker, edgier role that’s sure to catch viewers off guard. And perhaps that’s what Egoyan was looking for: the kind of actress who, if playing a prostitute, would play the typical hooker with a heart of gold. That way, when it becomes clear that all might not be right with sweet, sincere Chloe, it’s all the more unsettling.
Unfortunately, though, what’s most unsettling about Chloe isn’t the surprise casting; it’s the awkwardness of it all. Seyfried’s nice-girl persona doesn’t make Chloe’s darker side surprising as much as it makes it hard to believe. In fact, listening to Chloe’s detailed descriptions of her sexual encounters with Neeson’s David feels about as natural and as comfortable as I can imagine it would to hear your ten-year-old daughter reading aloud from the most graphic parts of your favorite romance novel.
Meanwhile, the story, based on the French film Nathalie… by writer/director Anne Fontaine, is like an eerily twisted take on Fatal Attraction, promising a dark, creepy (and steamy) thriller. It definitely heads in some intriguingly unexpected directions, but it also has its share of nagging holes—especially where Catherine’s actions and motivation are concerned. And, in the end—mostly due to its awkward casting—this tangled drama isn’t nearly as haunting as it could have been.
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