Tired concept mars ‘Chloe’

Atom Egoyan’s new film “Chloe” starts off looking like it will be a high-quality erotic thriller. Unfortunately, by falling victim to ridiculous and completely unrealistic characterizations, the film sets itself up for an expected and completely unoriginal ending.

The woman of the title is a high-class prostitute, played by Amanda Seyfried, who first runs into Catherine (Julianne Moore) in a restaurant bathroom. Catherine believes her husband (Liam Neeson) is cheating on her with his students, so she decides to hire Chloe to see if he can be seduced. Chloe’s attraction to Catherine becomes more than just a business arrangement, and everything falls apart when it’s revealed that Chloe isn’t completely truthful.

From then on, Chloe becomes the crazy stalker who must experience violent retribution. Once the twists are revealed, this film doesn’t even consider anything but the most obvious ending. “Chloe” could have been something special, but it drops all its ambitions in favor of safe, boring conventionality.