From Chloe’s opening scene it’s: ‘Hello vamp. Goodbye innocent Amanda’. It’s quite literally eyebrow-raising, erotic stuff to see Mamma Mia!’s sweet little Amanda Seyfried lose all inhibitions.

It felt much like witnessing the first time a bouncy, bright-eyed Billy Piper donned her suspenders for the part of Belle in Secret diary of a Call Girl. Seyfried as escort Chloe is not only incredibly seductive and believable in the role, but tantalizingly dangerous, too, daring us to challenge our previous perceptions of her - as one scene depicts when she looks directly into camera. But is Chloe just one of those misunderstood and sexually-active female characters that film theorists like to claim are eventually ‘punished’ for being so open and driven by what they want, sexually?

The beauty of this story is the constant change of opinion you have on this very subject, given Julianne Moore’s doctor character Catherine’s initial interest and encouragement in Chloe for her own relationship purposes. The first-class performances from Moore, Seyfried and Liam Neeson as Catherine’s wronged husband, David, also grab the interest from the word go.

This film’s concept could only originate in France, based on Anne Fontaine’s 2003 Nathalie, with the nation’s film-making history of tackling tabooed ‘parent-sibling’ relationships. Basically, like the classic ‘father-daughter’ relationships in the likes of La Femme Nikita, Nathalie explores the mother-daughter equivalent, with this Hollywood version not shying away from and still nicely building up the same sexual tension and suspense as its French counterpart.

This has a lot to do with the eerie and intense mood director Atom Egoyan has created and Moore’s skilled performance and talent in keeping us guessing as to Catherine’s true intentions - still unknown to the very end. Moore expertly balances being traumatised with being controlling, having us question exactly who Catherine really is, at all times. Stalwart leading man Neeson gives a solid performance opposite Moore as her wrongly-accused screen husband David. However, it is Moore and Seyfried’s electric moments that drive the film forward and keep the thriller aspect flowing as the clunky script suffers in parts, leading to sporadic giggles in the midst of the tension for the viewer and creating entertainment value in a way Egoyan did not really plan for.  

Apart from the film’s central cast, the other box office appeal set to fuel mainstream curiosity is undoubtedly seeing the innocent-looking Seyfried take the lead in bed with Moore, leading to some pretty steamy girl-on-girl but tender love-making scenes between the pair. The female rules this film, relegating the men to the sidelines as either indifferent (David) or emotionally immature, like Catherine’s confused teen son Michael (Max Thieriot).

There is a fine line between titillation for drumming up interest in a theoretically ‘art house’ styled film, and titillation as a tool to heighten the terrifying emotional draw each woman has on each other, accumulating in the ultimate physical union, Egoyan gets it right through the slightly melodramatic scenarios leading up to it.

Chloe embraces all that is great about French cinema, even if its script spoils it at times and revisits old territory. It has its merits in its own right as it is slick-looking and captures the imagination. If nothing else, Chloe is worth a view, given Seyfried and Moore’s engaging chemistry and Moore’s magic in finding depths to a complex character like Catherine that the script clearly does not offer.

Rating: ***

Starring: Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson and Max Thieriot
Director: Atom Egoyan
Release Date: March 5th
Runtime: 98mins
Certificate: 15

Review: Lisa Keddie

For more of Moore, see A Single Man, and for a more innocent Amanda Seyfried, catch her in Mamma Mia! The Movie