Chloe (2009) Movie Review

『A Maze of Desire and Anxiety, Delicately Portraying the Inner World of Women』

🎥 Movie Overview

🎬 Title: Chloe (2009)
🌍 Country: 🇺🇸 USA / 🇨🇦 Canada / 🇫🇷 France
🎞️ Genre: Erotic Thriller / Psychological Drama
🗓️ Production & Release: Sony Pictures Classics, single feature
⏳ Runtime: 96 minutes
📢 Director: Atom Egoyan
🖋️ Screenplay: Erin Cressida Wilson
📖 Based on: French film “Nathalie”

👩‍💼 Cast: Julianne Moore – Catherine Stewart
Amanda Seyfried – Chloe Sévigny [*possible error*]

🧩 Deep Dive into the Story (Spoilers)

🔍 Boredom and Anxiety Behind Perfection

Catherine is a successful gynecologist and the wife of renowned university professor David. Outwardly, they appear to have a perfect upper-middle-class life, but their marriage has frozen into disconnection and sexual stagnation. When Catherine finds out that David missed his flight and later discovers a suspicious photo of him with a young student, her underlying anxieties transform into concrete jealousy.

💄 Hiring Chloe

Instead of confronting David directly, Catherine hires the high-class escort Chloe to test her husband’s fidelity. This act goes beyond simply confirming David’s potential infidelity; it also reflects Catherine’s desperate attempt to reclaim her lost sense of sexual allure and relational intensity.

🧠 Transference of Desire and Indirect Pleasure

The film intensifies psychological tension as Chloe provides Catherine with detailed accounts of her fabricated encounters with David. Listening to Chloe’s vivid descriptions, Catherine experiences sexual arousal and stimulation she no longer feels with her husband. Chloe’s storytelling becomes less about David’s supposed betrayal and more about liberating Catherine’s repressed desires, serving as a form of vicarious sex.

🪞 Femininity, Aging, and the Struggle of Self-Acceptance

Ultimately, Chloe’s seduction shifts not toward David, but toward Catherine herself. Exploiting Catherine’s jealousy and insecurity, Chloe lures her, and the two women begin a physical relationship. For Catherine, this is both self-discovery and a release of suppressed desire, while for Chloe, it represents obsession and a desire to possess Catherine’s identity and life.

🎬 Chloe’s Lies

Catherine brings David and Chloe together in one room and realizes that David doesn’t recognize Chloe at all—revealing that all of Chloe’s reported encounters were lies. Chloe had never truly been interested in David; instead, she had been manipulating Catherine’s insecurities to get closer to her and to capture her attention.

🎨 The Twist and the Collapse of “Truth”

Rejected by Catherine, Chloe seduces Catherine’s son Michael and later confronts Catherine in her bedroom. This signifies Chloe’s intrusion into the most private and destructive realm of Catherine’s life. In a rage, Catherine pushes Chloe, who falls through the glass window and dies, a symbolic end to the anxieties and madness Chloe had brought into her life.

🦋 Emotional Aftermath and the Film’s Meaning

🌪️ Chloe’s Emotions: Love, Obsession, and Identification

Chloe can be interpreted as having felt a profound psychological identification with Catherine’s life and identity.

• True Love/Admiration: Chloe entrusts Catherine with her cherished hairpin, showing that she saw their relationship as more than a “transaction,” but rather as special and precious. She longed for Catherine’s seemingly perfect life, and this admiration turned into intense love and obsession for Catherine herself.
• Craving Attention and Alienation: As an escort, Chloe is tired of being treated merely as a sexual object by men. Catherine listens to her stories and reacts with genuine emotion. For Chloe, Catherine may have been the first person to treat her as a human being, making Catherine her savior and only love, leading to obsessive attachment.
• Reason for Extremes: When the lies about David are revealed, Chloe’s ultimate goal is not money or revenge but Catherine’s love. Seducing Michael and entering Catherine’s bedroom were desperate attempts to prove, “I am deeply embedded in your life,” and an extreme cry for love when she could not accept rejection.

🌀 Catherine’s Emotions: Love or Desire?

The emotions Catherine felt toward Chloe were ones she never experienced in her relationship with David: a powerful emotional connection.

• True Interest and Intimacy: Catherine not only felt excitement listening to Chloe’s stories, but also empathized with her vulnerability and the pain of her life as an escort. Catherine saw Chloe not merely as a “tool to test David” but as a soul partner with whom she shared her deepest secrets and desires.
• The Only Confession: Chloe explicitly confessed her love: “I love you.” Even when Catherine furiously rejected her, the rejection was mixed with feelings of betrayal over Chloe’s deceit and fear and guilt about being swept away by Chloe’s dangerous love. This suggests that Catherine still retained traces of affection for Chloe.
• The Symbolism of the Hairpin: When Chloe gave Catherine the hairpin, it symbolized her “true self.” Catherine’s act of wearing it shows that she accepted Chloe’s sincere heart and valued their relationship, however destructive it may have been.

📚 The Hairpin as “Remembering Chloe with Love”

Catherine’s wearing of Chloe’s hairpin resonates most strongly as an act of commemorating a lost lover.

Evidence of Love: Through Chloe’s sacrifice, Catherine was able to restore her relationship with her husband and protect her family. Yet this restoration came at the cost of Chloe’s fierce love. The hairpin becomes Catherine’s silent vow to never forget that love, evidence of her attachment to Chloe herself.

Reconciliation and Forgiveness: Chloe’s actions were obsessive and destructive, but over time Catherine may have come to acknowledge that their root was love for her. By wearing the hairpin, she symbolically expresses forgiveness and reconciliation, and eases her guilt over Chloe’s death.

Ultimately, to Catherine, Chloe was both a “tool that liberated her desires” and “a lover who loved her wholeheartedly.” The film shows, through the hairpin, Catherine’s choice to cherish the memory of Chloe as a whole.

🎯 Personal Rating (Taste-Based)

💕 Level of Love Scenes: ♥♥♥♥♥
⭐ Rating: ★★★