Chloe (film)
Encyclopedia
Chloe is a 2009 erotic thriller
Erotic thriller
The erotic thriller is a film and literary sub-genre which consists of a mixture between erotica and thriller. The genre increased in North American popularity from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, before declining in marketability.-1980s:...

 directed by Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan, OC is a critically acclaimed Armenian-Canadian stage director and film director. Egoyan made his career breakthrough with Exotica...

, a remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...

 of the 2004 French film Nathalie...
Nathalie...
Nathalie... is a 2004 French film directed by Anne Fontaine, and starring Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Béart, and Gérard Depardieu. It is distributed by Koch-Lorber Films.-Plot:...

. This version stars Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore is an American actress and a children's book author. Throughout her career, she has been nominated for four Oscars, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards....

, Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...

, and Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Michelle Seyfried is an American actress, singer-songwriter and former child model. She began her career as a child model when she was 11, and at 15 began her career as an actress, starting off with uncredited roles and moving on to recurring roles on As the World Turns and All My...

 in the title role. The screenplay was written by Erin Cressida Wilson
Erin Cressida Wilson
Erin Cressida Wilson is an American playwright, screenwriter, professor, and author.Wilson is known for the 2002 film Secretary, which she adapted from a Mary Gaitskill short story...

, based on said earlier French film, written by Anne Fontaine
Anne Fontaine (filmmaker)
Anne Fontaine is a filmmaker and screenwriter who used to be an actor. She lives and works in France.Born Fontaine Sibertin-Blanc, sister of actor Jean-Chrétien Sibertin-Blanc, she went as a young child to live in Lisbon, where her father, Antoine Sibertin-Blanc, is a music professor and cathedral...

.

StudioCanal
StudioCanal
StudioCanal is a French-based production and distribution company that owns the third-largest film library in the world...

 fully financed Chloe, which had already made its budget back via international pre-sales
Film finance
Film finance is an aspect of film production that occurs during the development stage prior to pre-production, and is concerned with determining the potential value of a proposed film...

. In 2009, the film received award nominations from London Film Festival
London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is the UK's largest public film event, screening more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts from almost 50 countries. The festival, , currently in its 54th year, is run every year in the second half of October under the umbrella of the British Film Institute...

, San Sebastián International Film Festival
San Sebastián International Film Festival
The San Sebastián International Film Festival is an annual FIAPF A category film festival held in the Spanish city of San Sebastián .-History:The festival was founded in 1953...

, and Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...

 under the category of Film Presented.

Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group
Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group
Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions is a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment. The company specializes in acquiring and producing films for a wide variety of distribution platforms, but the group's main focus is non-theatrical markets .SPWA was formerly a division of Sony Pictures Home...

 paid a low seven-figure sum to acquire the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 distribution rights of Chloe, and the group opened this film in limited theatrical release
Limited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....

 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 on March 26, 2010 through Sony Pictures Classics
Sony Pictures Classics
Sony Pictures Classics is an art-house film division of Sony Pictures Entertainment founded in December 1991 that distributes, produces and acquires specialty films from the United States and around the world. Its co-presidents are Michael Barker and Tom Bernard...

. In the United States, this film grossed $3 million theatrically and became one of the higher-grossing specialty films in 2010 (according to Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

, "$3 million is the new $10 million" for specialty films' box office in 2010).

Several months after the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

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

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

Plot

The film opens with Chloe (Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Michelle Seyfried is an American actress, singer-songwriter and former child model. She began her career as a child model when she was 11, and at 15 began her career as an actress, starting off with uncredited roles and moving on to recurring roles on As the World Turns and All My...

) dressing herself in front of a dirty mirror. In a voice over, she discusses her business as a call girl, explaining that she must be capable of pleasing her clients with her words, as well as with her actions.
Catherine (Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore is an American actress and a children's book author. Throughout her career, she has been nominated for four Oscars, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards....

), is a gynecologist and her husband David (Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...

), is a college professor. Catherine suspects David of having an affair after she sees a picture of him and a female student hugging on his phone.

After work, Catherine stops by the hotel bar where Chloe spends the majority of her time waiting for potential clients. Chloe, looking at Catherine passionately, tells her that she "[doesn't] usually meet with women." Catherine reassures Chloe, explaining that she suspects her husband of infidelity. She wants Chloe to go to David's coffee shop in the morning and test his loyalty. The next evening Catherine and Chloe meet at a bar. Chloe tells Catherine that she asked David to kiss her, and he did. Angered, Catherine tells Chloe that wasn't what she wanted her to do. However, she insists that Chloe meet with David again.

The next evening, Chloe tells Catherine that she went with David to a garden, where she seduced him. Catherine is heartbroken. Once more, she insists that Chloe meet with David again. The next day Catherine receives a text message from Chloe at work, asking her to meet her at a hotel. When Catherine arrives, Chloe tells her that she had sex with David. She describes the encounter in explicit detail, but rather than causing Catherine more heartbreak, it arouses her. Upon leaving the hotel room, Chloe, feeling remorse, kisses Catherine, who abruptly leaves.

During her son's (Michael) piano recital, she replays her meeting with Chloe, clearly in distress. She spots David, but does not sit next to him. Leaving the recital, Catherine meets Chloe at a hotel and has sex with her. Afterwards, Catherine and Chloe share a taxi and Chloe offers her her hairpin again. She says it was her mother's, and she wants Catherine to have it. Catherine doesn't reply to Chloe but she takes the hairpin. Catherine enters her home to find David waiting for her. He asks her if she's been unfaithful. Catherine becomes infuriated and tells him she's been meaning to ask him the same question. David declines to respond.

The next afternoon, Catherine arrives at her office after lunch to find several missed calls from Chloe and an email with a picture of them in bed together. Catherine calls her and discovers that Chloe is waiting in her waiting room. Chloe enters Catherine's office with flowers, and asks her if she enjoyed the sex the night before. Embarrassed, Catherine admits that she did, but explains that their business is finished and pays her for the work she has done. Chloe leaves Catherine's office crying. Seeking revenge, Chloe goes to Michael’s hockey practice and they flirt.

That night Catherine and David go to a coffee house, where Catherine demands that David admit that he is having an affair. David admits that he lied to her for avoiding the birthday party (because he didn't want to celebrate his birthday), but he denies that he is having an affair. Chloe suddenly walks in and David genuinely does not appear to know who Chloe is. Chloe realizes that it is a trap and leaves quickly. Catherine realizes that Chloe made up her encounters with David and that Chloe loved her because Catherine gave her attention.

Catherine apologizes to David for not having trusted him, and admits that she worried about him because she was getting older and more insecure about her appearance. Then she confesses her sexual encounters with Chloe. David, shocked but understanding, embraces and kisses her.

Jealous, Chloe goes to Catherine's home and has sex with Michael in Catherine and David's bed. Catherine arrives home to find them. Chloe tells Catherine that "money isn't enough to make her go away". Chloe threatens Catherine and holds the hair pin to her neck, scraping it and breaking the skin. Catherine apologizes and asks Chloe what she wants. Chloe asks for one last kiss and Catherine complies. Michael then sees what is going on, startling Catherine and causing her to accidentally push Chloe into the bedroom window, breaking the glass. Chloe manages to grab hold of the frame but then, with a triumphant smile, lets go and falls to her death. The viewer is not shown Chloe hitting the ground, but only paramedics wheeling away the body while Catherine is comforted by her husband. Later, at Michael's graduation party, Catherine is shown to be wearing Chloe's hairpin in her hair.

Cast

  • Amanda Seyfried
    Amanda Seyfried
    Amanda Michelle Seyfried is an American actress, singer-songwriter and former child model. She began her career as a child model when she was 11, and at 15 began her career as an actress, starting off with uncredited roles and moving on to recurring roles on As the World Turns and All My...

     as Chloe Sweeney
  • Liam Neeson
    Liam Neeson
    Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...

     as David Stewart
  • Julianne Moore
    Julianne Moore
    Julianne Moore is an American actress and a children's book author. Throughout her career, she has been nominated for four Oscars, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards....

     as Dr. Catherine Stewart
  • Max Thieriot
    Max Thieriot
    Maximillion Drake "Max" Thieriot is an American actor. During the 2000s, he appeared in several Hollywood films, including My Soul to Take, Catch That Kid, The Pacifier, Nancy Drew, Jumper, and Kit Kittredge: An American Girl.-Career:Thieriot was signed to talent manager Don Gibble after taking...

     as Michael Stewart
  • R. H. Thomson
    R. H. Thomson
    Robert Holmes "R. H." Thomson, is a Canadian television, film and stage actor.Thomson was born in Richmond Hill, Ontario. He studied at the University of Toronto, and the National Theatre School. His own play The Lost Boys was staged at the Great Canadian Theatre Company in March 2000 and at...

     as Frank
  • Nina Dobrev
    Nina Dobrev
    Nina Dobrev is a Bulgarian-Canadian actress. She played the role of Mia Jones, the single teenage mother, on Degrassi: The Next Generation, from the show's sixth to ninth season...

     as Anna
  • Meghan Heffern
    Meghan Heffern
    Meghan Heffern is a Canadian actress. She was born in Edmonton, Alberta and currently resides in Toronto, Ontario.-Television:* Flight 93 as Nicole Miller* Whistler as Britt...

     as Miranda
  • Laura DeCarteret as Alicia
  • Mishu Vellani as Julie

Critical reception

The film opened in 350 theatres to mixed reviews. Chloe was given a 53% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

.
Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

, which assigns a normalized score from major reviewers, gave the film a 48 out of 100, based on 33 reviews.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...

gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, while Elizabeth Weitzman of New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....

gave the film 1 out of 5 stars.

Production notes

  • Financed solely in France
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

    , the film was shot in Toronto
    Toronto
    Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

    . Several famous local landmarks can be seen, such as Allan Gardens
    Allan Gardens
    Allan Gardens is one of the oldest parks in Toronto, Canada. It has a conservatory , a playground and two fenced off-leash areas for dogs. It is operated by Toronto Parks who also run Centennial Park Conservatory...

    , Cafe Diplomatico, The Rivoli
    The Rivoli
    The Rivoli is a bar, restaurant and performance space, established in 1982, on Queen Street West in Toronto, Ontario. The club originally earned a reputation as one of Canada's hippest music clubs, and many major Canadian comedy and musical performers have played on its stage, including The Kids in...

    , the Windsor Arms Hotel
    Windsor Arms Hotel
    The Windsor Arms is a boutique hotel in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located at 18 St. Thomas St. in the heart of the Yorkville neighbourhood. The hotel includes Club 22, Court Yard Cafe and a Spa....

    , the Royal York Hotel, the Royal Ontario Museum
    Royal Ontario Museum
    The Royal Ontario Museum is a museum of world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With its main entrance facing Bloor Street in Downtown Toronto, the museum is situated north of Queen's Park and east of Philosopher's Walk in the University of Toronto...

    , the CN Tower
    CN Tower
    The CN Tower is a communications and observation tower in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Standing tall, it was completed in 1976, becoming the world's tallest free-standing structure and world's tallest tower at the time. It held both records for 34 years until the completion of the Burj...

    , the Art Gallery of Ontario
    Art Gallery of Ontario
    Under the direction of its CEO Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO embarked on a $254 million redevelopment plan by architect Frank Gehry in 2004, called Transformation AGO. The new addition would require demolition of the 1992 Post-Modernist wing by Barton Myers and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg...

     and the Ontario College of Art.
  • Liam Neeson
    Liam Neeson
    Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...

    's wife, Natasha Richardson
    Natasha Richardson
    Natasha Jane Richardson was an English actress of stage and screen. A member of the Redgrave family, she was the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director/producer Tony Richardson and the granddaughter of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...

    , 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 changed the script 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
    Jason Reitman
    Jason Reitman is a Canadian/American film director, screenwriter, and producer, best known for directing the films Thank You for Smoking , Juno , and Up in the Air . As of February 2, 2010, he has received three Academy Award nominations, two of which are for Best Director...

     helped persuade Amanda Seyfried
    Amanda Seyfried
    Amanda Michelle Seyfried is an American actress, singer-songwriter and former child model. She began her career as a child model when she was 11, and at 15 began her career as an actress, starting off with uncredited roles and moving on to recurring roles on As the World Turns and All My...

     to star in this film.
  • Canadian indie rock
    Indie rock
    Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

     band Raised by Swans
    Raised by Swans
    Raised by Swans is an indie rock band from London, Ontario, Canada. The band consists of singer-guitarist Eric Howden, guitarist Alex Wright, bassist Andy Magoffin, and drummer Brady Parr....

     has two songs featured in the movie and the band is mentioned several times by Chloe.
  • Anne Fontaine (the writer/director of Nathalie...
    Nathalie...
    Nathalie... is a 2004 French film directed by Anne Fontaine, and starring Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Béart, and Gérard Depardieu. It is distributed by Koch-Lorber Films.-Plot:...

    ) said that she was interested in Egoyan's take on her original. Fontaine also said that she even wasn't happy with Nathalie..., because the two lead actresses of the film objected to Fontaine's original intention for a lesbian
    Lesbian
    Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

     relationship to develop between their characters.

Home video release

Chloe was released in the United States on July 13, 2010 in both DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 and Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...

. The disc includes an audio commentary, making-of featurette and deleted scenes.

External links

Official
  • StudioCanal
    StudioCanal
    StudioCanal is a French-based production and distribution company that owns the third-largest film library in the world...

    (fr) Chloe

Database
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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