04-01-10 Movie Review: Chloe

Only one noncommercial movie on my list between now and next Wednesday night, the Friday Murdock Theatre movie at 536 North Broadway, 7:30, Le Femme Nikita, a German-French 1990 thriller about a drugged-up sex bomb who kills a cop and then gets recruited as a government agent; it stars Anne Parillaud and features Jeanne Moreau and Jean Reno.

And commercially, Chloe stars Amanda Seyfried, the newly married daughter of HBO’s Big Love, as a prostitute hired by Joanna Moore to find out whether her husband Liam Neeson is faithful to her, another odd assignment for a person of questionable character. I don’t know about La Femme Nikita, but Chloe starts out before the story even starts by telling us that her profession requires her to play many roles, and all the way through, we are invited to wonder what role she is playing in this scene and whether it is the same role she was playing in that; I was not disturbed as some others seem to have been by the fact that I could never be sure, any more than I could be sure what Moore was hoping to prove. There are some incompatible desires at work on both sides, which under the circumstances does not seem unrealistic.

Evaluations of Chloe the movie seem to form around Chloe the character, at least as interpreted by Seyfried. Seyfried has big Anne Hathaway eyes and Angelina Jolie lips in a basic kewpie-doll face, and sensuality that is hard for me to take seriously either way, especially when the editing makes it unclear whether what we are seeing is a flashback to the facts, an illustration of what Seyfried is saying, or a revelation of how Moore’s mind is picturing either one. This confusion doesn’t bother me much because it seems to reflect the confusion that must be going on in Moore’s mind as she listens and tries to decide what to believe. Seyfried’s narrations, by the way, are graphic enough to offend the delicate, even as the more prurient may be disappointed at the relative lack of nudity, of which there is just enough to prove that Seyfried is a lot sexier than HBO’s Big Love lets her show.

Moore, meanwhile, lets herself look less attractive than she really is, which freckles all over her face and arms and wrinkling and saggy skin; we can see why she might be worried about a husband who is surrounded by coeds who are the same age every year, especially when the husband is Liam Neeson, whose aging takes the form of strength and maturity, with no visible degeneration at all. Neeson actually hasn’t got a lot to do in Chloe, especially because of the ambiguity of much of his footage that is attached to Seyfried’s reports.

I found Chloe more interesting than involving, not nearly as predictable as some claim it is, a good, solid evening’s entertainment, not very exciting but encouraging in the suggestion that Amanda Seyfried may be an upcoming star.