Chloe (2009) dir. Atom Egoyan
Starring: Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson, Max Theriot

**1/2

It’s a shame ‘Chloe’ turned out to be what it is. For two thirds, it’s an entrancing Hitchcockian thriller under the filter of Atom Egoyan sophistication. Unfortunately a concerted effort to stay in the mainstream sees the film play out on the straight and narrow path toward cliché and familiar genre storytelling - thus revealing itself as nothing more than a recycled sexual genre thriller from the 1990’s.

Catherine (Julianne Moore) is a sexually frustrated doctor married to David (Liam Neeson), a university professor, both lead busy lives and barely have any romantic time for each other. Their teenaged son, Michael (Max Theriot), is just discovering the joys of sex and spends plenty of time locked in his bedroom with his girlfriend. When Catherine suspects David of cheating, she’s not so much upset as jealous of him. Enter Chloe, a sexy high priced call girl who plies her trade in the same posh upper class Toronto restaurants as Catherine. After a brief meeting Catherine tracks her down offers her a proposition to flirt with her husband as a test of his fidelity.

Chloe turns the trick, and gets paid and reports back on the results. Not satisfied with just one encounter Catherine pays her again and again to increase the affair, the effect of which actually turns Catherine on. Catherine and Chloe's relationship deepens creating a situation even more dangerous than a naughty affair.

It's Julianne Moore’s picture here, our hero really, carrying the burden of the action and with all the emotional conflict on her shoulders. It’s a demanding role to manage the direction in which her character sways - from sexually frustrated alpha-female to emotionally naked sex slave - but Moore pulls it off. Seyfried is alluring when her character needs to tease us with her mantrap flirtations. Egoyan even opens up eying her stunning nude body being clothed, shot discreetly of course with carefully placed camera angles. Her big blue eyes and lusciously full lips are nothing short of perfect. When her dangerous side is revealed so does Seyfried's inadequacies, failing to convince us her psychotic obsessions don’t rely on the “Single White Female‘ or ‘Fatal Attraction‘ precedent.

Egoyan’s biggest strength has always been his ability to hide and reveal information for maximum emotional impact. Maybe it’s the linear narrative or the genre requirements which hold him back here but it’s a predictable and unmemorable course charted. As the chess pieces are setup brilliantly I was hoping the film wouldn’t go where it appeared to be headed. And as the running time clipped along the realization slowly set in that it was the only place it could possibly go. And so, by the third act we find ourselves in a full fledged 1990’s sexual thriller, no more intelligent, original or sophisticated than anything we’ve seen before.

Going through the credits it’s easy to see how this picture went off the rails - or stayed on the rails, depending on your perspective. Ivan and Jason Reitman are credited as producers (instead of the arthouse-leaning Robert Lantos) and the ones who found the property and recruited Egoyan. Its the first picture where Egoyan hasn't written his own script, and the mainstream direction the film goes has someone else's fingerprints all over it.

It’s Egoyan’s most mainstream film which perhaps might satisfy audiences put off by his usual psychology ruminations but it will likely only tease naughty boys looking to catch sight of Amanda Seyfried's lovely breasts.

Adoration (2009) dir. Atom Egoyan
Starring: Devon Bostick, Scott Speedman, Arsinee Khanjian

**

I am a big Atom Egoyan fan, which extends even beyond flag waving patriotism. Even his recent lesser-regarded films, “Where the Truth Lies”, “Felicia's Journey” dug into me and struck a chord. With “Adoration” it’s Egoyan again, his trademark multi-layered elliptical style with a peculiar story about a teenager’s conflicts reconciling the death of his parents. If this were another filmmaker’s film, I’d might call it a triumph of tonal control and metaphorical storytelling, but with Egoyan, it's something we’ve seen before, but with more preciousness and with lesser emotional punch.

Devon Bostick plays Simon, a high school student who lives with his ner-do-well, older brother Tom (Scott Speedman). We’re told by his ailing grandfather (Kenneth Welsh) that his father was a despicable man that had something to do his mother’s death. We also see, a recurring flashback at an Israeli airport customs desk where Simon’s mom (Rachel Blanchard) has problems attempting to enter Israel.

Meanwhile, Simon’s teacher Sabine (Arsinee Khanjian) convinces him to enter a drama show and pretend that his father was a terrorist and tried to heinously sacrifice his mother by planting a bomb in her luggage. Stay with me here… It seems like innocent deception until Simon posts his false story over the internet causing a huge fervour amongst the family. Slowly Sabine’s motivations are revealed and a dramatic connection to Simon outside of school emerges.

I can only gather that the purpose of the story structure is to confuse the audience, and eventually unravel the truth from the lies. It’s an hallmark of all Egoyan’s films – often jumping timelines to strategically unveil the emotion of the story. Unfortunately it doesn’t work with “Adoration.”  

We are fed blatant lies and false truths for no other the reason than to confuse us. In the first half we actually believe Simon’s dad was actually a terrorist - or maybe we do know and I was the only one in the theatre confused - I doubt it. Deceiving the characters is one thing, purposely lying to the audience is dangerous. Having bought into this dramatic bombshell magically erasing that plot point is an unfair dupe of our emotional investment.

I reviewed Brad Anderson’s “The Machinist” yesterday, and there’s some commonality in why both films don't work. Like Anderson's film, "Adoration's" 'story-guts' is contained in a truth, which is held back from the audience. With “The Machinist’s” Trevor Resnick character, he knows the truth, but his own mind is masking it. There's is little drama in the journey of either character, instead overweighted by its eventual twist reveal.

If anything, I enjoyed the performance of Scott Speedman who has said he aggressively pursued his role which was originally written for an older man. Speedman's instincts were right as his relationship with his brother, a paternal role he forced himself into, becomes the most interesting aspect of the film - a successful dramatic shift for Speedman into Cannes-worthy art house cinema.

The Sweet Hereafter (1997) dir. Atom Egoyan
Staring: Ian Holm, Sarah Polley, Bruce Greenwood, Tom McCamus, Gabriella Rose

****

It’s July 1st, 'Canada Day! To celebrate let’s revisit one of Canada’s best films – and my personal all-time favourite, “The Sweet Hereafter”. It’s a morose story, not quite the joyous experience through which to celebrate our national day, but the type of film which has represented our country proudly on the international stage.

Eleven years after it was made the film still packs an emotional wallop. It’s heavy material to say the least – the story of a town stricken with grief after a tragic school bus accident and the laywer who desires to unite them in a class action lawsuit – but a complex and rewarding experience with enough layers to warrant multiple viewings.

The film opens introducing Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm), a lawyer, who is stuck in a car wash and can’t get out. It’s one of many layers of complex metaphors and foreshadowing which Egoyan will add to the story. Stephens has arrived in a small secluded unnamed Alberta town where a tragic bus accident has recently occurred which has killed many of the town’s children. Stephens is an observant ambulance chaser who one-by-one gathers the townsfolk in a class action lawsuit against anything that could bring them a monetary settlement.

As he moves through the town we meet the grieving families who are vulnerable prey to Stephens’ emotional manipulations. Like a door-to-door salesman, Stephens is smooth and comforting, but also sly and aggressive. But Stephens’ dispassion and talent at his job has resulted in a broken relationship with his own daughter, who continually torments him with threatening cell phone calls. Not everyone is convinced a lawsuit will heal the town's pain though. Billy the mechanic sees Stephens’ ambulance chasing as a threat to the community which will divide and destroy them forever. It will be the testimony of the accident's only surviving child - a young teenage girl Nicole (Sarah Polley) - who holds the power to heal the community.

Atom Egoyan masterfully layers characters' subplots, stunning visual imagery, evocative music & sound and thematic metaphors to paint his complex film. The most obvious layer is the shifting timeline. Many scenes are played out of order – before the accident, after the accident, flashbacks and scenes of a plane ride taken by Stephens’ 2 years later. We’re never lost in the time-jumping and so without the confusion the device is never gimmicky.

One of the layers is this unnamed town where a once unified community of citizens is threatened by big city politics. Billy’s (Bruce Greenwood) conversation with Sam (Tom McCamus) before Nicole’s deposition articulates this threat. It’s a great scene. Billy describes to Sam how the lawyers will start clamoring over each other over the right to the law suit and potential winfall from the tragedy. Billy’s argument may be hypothetical, or the truth – either way it convinces an eavesdropping Nicole to do the right thing. Though Atom Egoyan chose to ‘Canadianize’ Russell Banks' American setting the film is essentially borderless. The community could stand for any small town (Canada or the U.S.) which precariously survives by the will and fortitude of its citizens.

I’d even argue there are too many ‘layers’ in the film. Sarah Polley’s voiceover is perhaps the most manipulative. Egoyan returns occasionally to Nicole’s reciting of the Pied Piper of Hamelin story. Though it emphasizes the townsfolk's conundrum between grief and anger, the film remains powerful and complex without this on-the-nose metaphor. The same might be said about Nicole's incestuous relationship with her father, which is introduced but never adequately reconciled.

“The Sweet Hereafter” was made in 1997 – a special year in cinema. Perhaps the height of the 90’s independent movement, where emotionally complex films like “Breaking the Waves”, “Secrets and Lies” broke into the mainstream. It remains one of our crowning achievements. Maybe not ideal viewing for Canada Day, but a fine entry point into the nebulous world of Canadian cinema. Enjoy.

Other related posting:
The 10th Anniversary of 1997

Listen to the bad movie-trailer voiceover in this trailer: