“Chloe” raises questions about sexual fidelity

Chloe is a domestic thriller and a sexual suspense film that raises questions about sexual fidelity, but the answers are much too nicely tied up at the end to prevent any embarrassment to the characters.

Or confusion for the audience, either, for that matter.

Julianne Moore plays Catherine, a successful gynecologist in Toronto, and the story begins with her arranging a surprise birthday party for her husband, David, who is played by Liam Neeson.

David is a college professor, and he is in New York City giving a lecture on opera. When a pretty girl asks him out to dinner after the lecture, David changes his plans to fly directly back to Toronto and thus misses the surprise birthday party that Catherine was giving for him.

The next morning back in Toronto, David lies to Catherine and tells her that he missed his flight back and that was why he was late getting home.

However, Catherine sees a text message on David’s phone that says, “Thanks for last night. xMiranda.”

Catherine doesn’t confront David about his lie, but instead does something more drastic. David has always been too flirtatious with women he just meets to suit Catherine, and she suspects that he is cheating on her.

So, when Catherine meets Chloe, a high-priced call girl played by Amanda Seyfried, Catherine hires Chloe to “accidentally meet” David, just to see what David will do and then report back to Catherine.

Well, you can see where this is going, can’t you?

Or maybe not.

Chloe and David meet a second time, but when she reports back to Catherine, Catherine says that she shouldn’t have involved Chloe in this, she made a mistake, and she tells Chloe to stop.

However, something happens which causes Chloe not to stop, and the relationship between her and Catherine changes. Not only that, but when Chloe is at Catherine’s office, Chloe meets Catherine’s teenage son, Michael, and a fourth major character enters the messy situation.

For what it is worth, this film by Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan is based on a 2004 French-Spanish film called NATHALIE, which has been called a “pretentious character study,” but which I have not seen.

Chloe kept me guessing right up until, oh, about the halfway point when I figured out what was going on, and then I lost interest.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”