If you want to take it seriously, the clue to Atom Egoyan's melodrama about trust and desire is in the titular character's opening monologue. Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) explains her role as a prostitute: "I can be anybody you want." And what insecure middle-aged Catherine (Julianne Moore) wants is to find out whether her charming husband David (Liam Neeson), a professor, is cheating. So, she hires Chloe to seduce him and report back, in explicit detail; in essence, she pays Chloe to at least vicariously be the object of David's desire again. Needless to say, this "plan" only makes everything complicated, not least when Chloe starts going rogue.
Chloe is a remake of the 2004 French film Nathalie, and it certainly works as frothy entertainment -- Fatal Attraction for the arthouse crowd, with some explicit girl-on-girl action -- but I never felt it transcended the genre of glossy, psychosexual thrillers set amid navel-gazing pretty people with overly designed homes. Even its shocks were formulaic: Oh no, the family unit imperiled by a hyper-sexualized outsider?! To be resolved, but not before most characters take their clothes off and -- seriously? -- somebody falls out a window. In the year 2010, this feels pretty old-fashioned, but its' good for a few unintentional laughs. Starts Fri., March 26