chloe

Catherine's (Julianne Moore) husband David (Liam Neeson) misses a flight home and her surprise birthday party for him falls apart. The following morning she spies a suspicious picture in his phone and it is here that things start crumbling. It's a marriage overtaken by responsibilities, a connection worn thin. Catherine, a successful gynecologist, is still pretty despite the lines on her face when she smiles, and yet she is often overlooked by her husband, a charming professor, a classical music expert. They have a son, a music major named Michael, aloof and secretive like most boys his age, and between a son that wants to have nothing to do with her and a husband who doesn't see her, Catherine feels so alone.

From her office window once she sees a girl escorting a man out of a building. She is young and blonde and from afar Catherine can see how pretty she is, and how the guy she's with is perhaps David's age. The girl can't be older than Catherine's son. She's wondering if men of a certain age prefers girls of a certain age; younger, definitely, than she now is. The thought fills her with a sort of dread.

The first time Catherine runs into Chloe, it's in a restaurant restroom. Catherine locks herself in a cubicle and hears sniffling from the adjacent space. There's a muffled voice of a girl crying, and after a while, Catherine's handing the girl a handful of tissues through the space between them by their feet. The shot of their stilettos and the music and Chloe's red painted fingernails wrapping around Catherine's pale hand make for very tense viewing and nothing's even happening. Or at least, none yet.

Outside by the mirror, Catherine is fixing her hair. Chloe comes out, thanks her. She pulls out a dainty hair clip and tells Catherine she must have dropped it. Catherine says it isn't hers, and Chloe says, Take it anyway. Catherine turns around and smiles. Chloe looks back -- her eyes wide, honest, fascinated; her lips full and parted. Chloe says, I want you to have it. Catherine considers for a moment before telling her she has to get back to her husband. Chloe stares at Catherine reflection on the mirror as she walks away, says nothing.

I try to chalk it up to overreading subtext -- I'm always overreading subtext because I enjoy it. Put two attractive girls in a room and somehow I can manage to read subtext into it 80 percent of the time. But this -- Amanda Seyfried as Chloe, for all the sexual tension that oozes out of her in this first scene wtih Julianne Moore as Catherine -- it is not subtext at all, is it?

[MASSIVE SPOILERS YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED BUT GOD IT'S SEXY I CAN'T HELP MYSELF.]



When Catherine returns to their table, where she and David are having dinner with her colleague Frank and his much younger girlfriend, they're talking about how the restaurant is full of middle aged men having dinner with much younger women. From the corner of her eye, Catherine spies Chloe returning to her table in kind - she herself is dining with a much older man, and across the room, Chloe catches Catherine looking at her; holds her eye for a long time.

The next time they see each other, it's in a dimly lit bar. Catherine has seen Chloe enter the place, spying on her from her office window. Catherine walks into the bar, shivering, unsure. She takes a seat upon a bar stool, tells the waiter she'd like a Chardonnay. Chloe walks in after her, takes the adjacent seat, just looks at Catherine as Catherine fidgets in hers. And then, Chloe asks her if Catherine wants to buy her a drink. (At this point I hit pause because Jesus I need a moment to take that question in and I am taking longer than necessary.)

Catherine asks her what she'd like. Chloe responds with, What are you having? The bar tender comes back with Catherine's glass, and Catherine asks for another one. Chloe tells her she doesn't usually meet with women. Couples, yes, but single women... Catherine tells her she thinks her husband would like her. That she thinks her husband is cheating on her.

They arrange for Chloe to seduce David. Catherine tells her of his habits, of where she could find him - David has his lunch in Cafe Diplomatico, he is always reading the paper. Chloe asks, If he asks what I do for a living, what do I say? It's an exercise in make believe. Chloe's a student studying to be an interpreter; she says she knows a little Japanese. They meet up later and Chloe tells Catherine the details of the meeting. As it turns out, Chloe is a gifted storyteller - her words are sparse, she is even fully clothed, yet there is something about her that is always seductive. She knows how to choose her words.

Catherine looks at Chloe distraught, flustered - I'd remember this look, and I'd remember this character sporting this look for most of the film, but the magic of it is that I'd use the same word for this face (distraught, flustered), but then somewhere along the way, I'm not sure that she's distraught and flustered about the same things anymore. That the words mean the same.

After a while, Catherine asks, How do you do this? Chloe answers, her eyes sad, almost innocent: I try to find something to love in everybody. Even if it's a small thing. Something about the way someone smiles. There's always something; there has to be. I try to make myself generous, and I do things I don't want to do. I think about what not to criticize. But the strangest things come back to me. You.

Me, Catherine asks. Chloe says, Yeah, you. People like you walk into my life. Catherine breathes in, hands her an envelope full of money, tells her she wants to do it one more time, just to see what he does.

It becomes a habit, that; reluctant, at first, but Catherine comes back to it, to Chloe anyway, looking for her stories, these little snatches of intimate moments this girl has with her husband, moments Catherine no longer has access to. Chloe's storytelling is deadpan, regardless of the subject, regardless of how intense the story in itself is; once, dressed in nothing but a robe in a hotel where she'd just finished with David, she asks Catherine to come by so she can hear the story. Catherine listens, perched upon a side table, gripping the edges of it, clawing at the wood surface of it with her fingernails, and Chloe just has to ask, Does this turn you on? (hit pause right here for adequate absorption of dialogue)

It's the same question you ask yourself: Does it? Does it turn Catherine on? But then I assume a woman like that who hasn't been touched for so long -- it's easy to set fire to that. For Chloe, even using the simplest of words does the job, and does it well. In response, Catherine rubs the skin behind her knee with her foot, a slow movement upward and then down, and what I REALLY want to know is when that move became so breathtakingly sexy.

The whole thing progresses - at some point Catherine's friends even think she's having an affair, because she's got the word 'affair' written all over her when in fact she's just meeting with Chloe - clandestine, yes, but an affair? No, it's her husband who's having an affair, she clears with herself. And then she keeps on meeting with Chloe, until things come to a head, and then I myself am unsure as to who's actually having an affair with who, in the end.

I haven't tired of rewatching this film; it has so many layers, and Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried have such fantastic faces, and I don't say that to mean they're only beautiful -- well, they are, but the nuances of emotions on their faces throughout the film, the carefully executed silences and gaps and looks and non-looks, the language of their hands, their bodies, the way they lean into each other when they talk, when they don't talk, when Catherine is trying desperately not to connect while Chloe is being so painfully open and honest -- that's what makes all of it just beautiful, that knowing how it ends does not even take away the magic of the beginning and the buildup when you watch it all over again. 

Speaking of endings, I hate how this ending completely shuts out the possibility of sequels. Chloe is the sort of character who'd be interesting in different settings, with entirely different people. One of the most tense, multi-layered, potential-filled movies I've watched in years. Bravo.