Chloe Information

Chloe is a 2009 erotic thriller film directed by Atom Egoyan, a remake of the 2004 French film Nathalie.... It stars Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, and Amanda Seyfried in the title role. Its screenplay was written by Erin Cressida Wilson, based on the earlier French film, written by Anne Fontaine.

Despite its mixed critical reception, Chloe made more money than any of Atom Egoyan's previous films.

Plot

The film opens with Chloe getting dressed. In a voice-over, she discusses her business as a call girl. Catherine is a gynecologist and her husband David is a college professor. Catherine suspects David of having an affair after she sees a cell-phone picture of him embracing a female student.

After work, Catherine stops by the hotel bar where Chloe waits for clients. Chloe tells her that she does not usually service women. Catherine tells Chloe she wants to hire her to test David's loyalty. The next evening, Catherine and Chloe meet, and Chloe tells Catherine that he asked her if he could kiss her, which he did. Angered, Catherine tells Chloe that she did not want her to become physically intimate with David. However, she insists that Chloe meet with him again. Over the next few nights, Catherine and Chloe meet multiple times, and Chloe describes in explicit detail her encounters with David, which arouses Catherine during one meeting; Chloe kisses Catherine, and Catherine, surprised by this, abruptly leaves. Later, when meeting with David at a get-together, she is taken aback by his acknowledgment of the scent of her lotion; it is the same lotion that Chloe wears. Seemingly upset by this, Catherine leaves and meets with Chloe at a hotel; she asks Chloe to show her how David touches her, then has sex with Chloe. When she arrives home later than usual, David asks her if she has been unfaithful. Catherine tells him she thinks he has been unfaithful as well, and the two become engrossed in a brief argument as David says that he is not having an affair. They are interrupted by their son, Michael, and do not finish their argument.

The next afternoon, Catherine meets with Chloe and calls off their relationship. That night, she calls Chloe to meet with her. She and David go to a coffee house, where she demands that David admit that he is having an affair. David says that he is not, and that all he did was flirt with a woman. Chloe suddenly walks in, and David does not appear to know who she is. Chloe leaves quickly, and Catherine realizes that Chloe made up her encounters with David. David admits that he has wanted to have sex with other women, and expects Catherine to admit similarly with regard to men. When she does not, and instead says that she has never wanted to be with anyone else, David becomes agitated and leaves the shop. Catherine catches up with him outside and confesses her sexual encounter with Chloe. She says that she felt she became invisible to David as she aged, while David became more attractive to her the older he became, and that this got in the way of her continuing to be sexually intimate with him. He embraces and kisses her.

Chloe goes to the Stewart home and has sex with Catherine's son, Michael, in Catherine and David's bed. Catherine arrives home and finds them. Chloe tells Catherine that she cannot be bought off with money, and that she is in love with her. She threatens to hurt Catherine with her hair pin. Catherine asks Chloe what she wants. Chloe requests one last kiss, and Catherine complies. Michael sees, startling Catherine and causing her to push Chloe into the bedroom window, breaking the glass. Chloe manages to grab hold of the frame, but she intentionally lets go and falls to her death. Paramedics wheel away the body while Catherine is comforted by her husband. Later, at Michael's graduation party, Catherine is wearing Chloe's hairpin in her hair.

Cast

• Julianne Moore as Dr. Catherine Stewart
• Liam Neeson as David Stewart
• Amanda Seyfried as Chloe Sweeney
• Max Thieriot as Michael Stewart
• R. H. Thomson as Frank
• Nina Dobrev as Anna
• Meghan Heffern as Miranda
• Natalie Lisinska as Eliza
• Laura DeCarteret as Alicia
• Mishu Vellani as Julie

Production notes

• Financed solely in France, the film was shot in Toronto. Several famous local landmarks can be seen, such as Allan Gardens, Cafe Diplomatico, The Rivoli, the Windsor Arms Hotel, the Royal York Hotel, the Royal Ontario Museum, the CN Tower, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Ontario College of Art.
• Liam Neeson's wife, Natasha Richardson, had a skiing accident during filming. Neeson decided to leave the set to take care of his wife, who died from her injury a few days later. The filmmakers re-arranged the shooting schedule accordingly for Neeson's absence. Just a few days after his wife's death, Neeson returned to the set and filmed the remainder of his scenes in two days.
• Jason Reitman helped persuade Amanda Seyfried to star in this film.
• Canadian indie rock band Raised by Swans has two songs featured in the movie and the band is mentioned several times by Chloe.
• Anne Fontaine (the writer/director of Nathalie...) said that she was interested in Egoyan's take on her original. Fontaine also said that she was not happy with Nathalie... because the two lead actresses of the film objected to her original intention for a lesbian relationship to develop between their characters.

Financing and distribution

StudioCanal fully financed Chloe, which had already made its $11 million budget back via international pre-sales. In 2009, the film received award nominations from London Film Festival, San Sebastián International Film Festival, and Toronto International Film Festival under the category of Film Presented.

Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group paid a low seven-figure sum to acquire the United States distribution rights of Chloe, and the group opened this film in limited theatrical release in the United States on March 26, 2010 through Sony Pictures Classics. In the United States, this film grossed $3 million theatrically and became one of the higher-grossing specialty films in 2010 (according to Variety, "$3 million is the new $10 million" for specialty films' box office in 2010).

In the wake of Chloe, Egoyan had since received many scripts of erotic thrillers. Amanda Seyfried's performance in this film also helped her to gain industry acclaim and become considered for more roles.

Home media

Chloe was released in the United States on July 13, 2010 in both DVD and Blu-ray Disc. The disc includes an audio commentary, making-of featurette, and deleted scenes.

Several months following the DVD/Blu-ray release of Chloe, Atom Egoyan said that Chloe had made more money than any of his previous films.

Critical reception

The film opened in 350 theaters to mixed reviews; on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Chloe holds a 50% approval rating based on 149 reviews, with a rating average of 5.7/10. The site's consensus is that "Despite its promising pedigree and a titillating premise, Chloe ultimately fails to deliver the heat -- or the thrills -- expected of a sexual thriller." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized score from major reviewers, gave the film a 48 out of 100, based on 33 reviews, indicating "Mixed or average reviews."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, while Elizabeth Weitzman of New York Daily News gave the film 1 out of 5 stars.