DRAMA; 1hr 36min
STARRING: Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson
Truth or dare: from left, Seyfried and Moore
In a 180-degree swerve from her recent froth, pastel-pretty Seyfried (Letters to Juliet ) goes pouty and oblique as Toronto call gall Chloe, who tries to see the best in her clients even while patently depressed by them. Gynaecologist Catherine Stewart (Moore) is depressed as well — as you would be if you suspected your Dr Suave professor husband (Neeson as David) was cheating on you. Rather than have it out with David, a stung yet resourceful Catherine hires Chloe to confirm her fears, then suffers through the pouty one’s detached detailing of her and David’s encounters.
Rattling around her glassy, ordered home, Catherine seems fragile and displaced but she is no breakable twig: driven by twisted, insecure wantonness, she has tastefully lit sex with Chloe, who, believing herself to be In Love, then loses it big time.
As deep-etched in melodrama as this rejigging of the 2003 French movie Nathalie… is from director Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter ), like the tackiest of tabloid scandals, Chloe commands attention. It’s the guilty-pleasure gift that keeps on giving — even when it’s already given too much.
