Saturday, July 24, 2010

Now playing at home: CHLOE (Rated R)


Stars: Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson

Director: Atom Egoyan

Genre: Erotic Thriller





Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried hook up in a steamy lesbian scene in director Atom Egoyan's Chloe. Moore has played some lesbian/bi-sexual roles before--though I don't know that she's ever come out and said ""I'm bi-sexual." It doesn't make a hill of pinto beans to me--but what gets me is actresses who are doing all this graphic stuff with other women on film, and then try to tell you they are straight--and that it's just part of the story, and they are making "sacrifices for their art." Like Cameron Diaz, who said: "If I'm going to be with a woman sexually, it doesn't make me a lesbian." No, it doesn't, Cameron. But bare minimum, it makes you bi-sexual.

Hey, if I'm an actor and I do a bunch of movies where I play a guy who likes asparagus, in scenes that require me to chow down on oodles of it...I wouldn't have taken on those roles if I really DIDN'T like asparagus! I"d spit that stuff right back in yo face!

Be whatever you want to be, (and be all you CAN be) but just don't insult my intelligence about it, is all I'm sayin.

AND NOW...BACK TO OUR STORY!

Julianne Moore is Catherine, a gynecologist who suspects her professor husband, David, (Liam Neeson) of cheating on her. She runs into Chloe, (Amanda Seyfried) a beautiful young call-girl, in a public restroom, and later gets the idea to hire the tart to approach her hubby and see if he will take the bait. When the two women subsequently meet to compare notes, Catherine finds herself getting aroused by Chloe's lurid descriptions of the things she's been doing with the doc's husband. Is Catherine living vicariously through the young temptress, thinking about the things she and David used to do together, but don't seem to have the time or the inclination for anymore? Or is there more to it than that? Well, yes there is...as the women become intimate with each other.

When Catherine must ultimately end the affair, Chloe crosses over into Fatal Attraction territory, as the scarlet woman spurned begins to find ways to ingratiate herself into Catherine's family. There's a twist at the end that I saw coming rather early on, and that you may catch onto as well if you're paying attention during the opening scene of the movie, and putting two and two together from there. The character of David is really window dressing here, as Chloe is all about the repressed desires of two women from disparate backgrounds finding common ground through their sexuality.

Michael Danna's brooding soundtrack is psychological thriller appropriate.

Temptation often leads us into sticky situations, from which we must try to extract ourselves--as best we can--hoping we haven't triggered the kind of karma that will come back to bite us on the butt...but that is often just what it does.

GRADE: B



4 comments:

  1. when I saw the previews on this one I silently groaned and thought the boys are gonna LOVE this stuff! but you make it sound way more interesting, really! and Tim, did you never take a method acting class in college love - I could kiss a woman in a movie and it wouldn't make me anymore of a lesbian than if dying my hair blond would make me a blond, it really IS acting (and many times for big bucks)

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  2. Elsiee,,
    I respect your opinion, but if someone is just "acting," then their performance may not be all that convincing. The best actors, as I understand it, need to essentially INHABIT their character--BECOME that character in a sense. And if an actor is choosing a certain type of character, repeatedly, as Julianne Moore has done, that tells me that she must feel at least fairly comfortable in that role. And that, in turn, tells me something about the actor as a person.

    All I'm saying is that some of us have a more firmly defined sense of where we fall on the sexuality spectrum, and some of us...not so much.

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  3. Interesting comments, yours and Elsiee's
    I can see your point of view and hers.

    I for one, would love to be given the opportunity "to act" with some of my favorite movie stars, one of them is Sean Connery and even tho it would be "only acting (on his part) I bet I can get into it for a minute or two...!! :)

    I agree that an actor needs not to qualify his/her own personal sexual preferences to play a role...it is like one who plays a murderer and reports that "he/she has never killed or wanted to kill anyone" It is very stupid of them to try to clear up a fear that lives only in their imagination and it opens them up for more debate.

    On the other hand, a gay actor that portraits romantic movies (take Rock Hudson and Doris Day) for years, was by no means bi-sexual even tho he was married at one point, Rock was gay.

    For what I saw in the preview, Julianne Moore was seduced, being bi-curious as they call it and enjoying it or acting as if she is inhabiting her role does not make her bi-sexual, not even for a day or two. It goes much deeper than liking it, or having an isolated experience. The younger actress, her manipulative games gave me chills...that is not very attractive to me.

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  4. GRISELDA,
    Appreciate your intelligent comment. I agree that simply being sexually curious about one's own gender, and then acting on that curiosity, does not necessarily make one gay or bi-sexual. (And I am one who believes that labels suck, but for our purposes here, let's employ them.)

    What I'm getting at is that some of us, myself included, have no inclination whatsoever in that direction, and society would label us as "straight." Do we make not even a small distinction between those who have a firmly defined sense of which way we lean, and those who feel a need, for whatever reason, to experiment with homosexuality? Is a person straight merely because that's how they prefer to think of themselves? If so, then we would have to say that one's actions and behavior count for nothing.

    I am one who believes that, in a sense, "acting" does not exist. There is an old saying: "You are what you eat." (Which may apply here, but let's not go there right now!) There is the realm of the imagination, and there is the realm of doing, and in the realm of doing, we have done what we have done, regardless of what we choose to call it. In a world where many prefer to point fingers, rather than take responsibility for their own actions, I think that's an important distinction.

    If a man robs a bank, do we refrain from calling him a bank robber simply because he was curious
    about what it would be like to do it?

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