# Chloe (2009 film)
**Chloe** is a 2009 erotic thriller directed by [Atom Egoyan](https://www.edgepedia.org/atom-egoyan), in which a Toronto doctor ([Julianne Moore](https://www.edgepedia.org/julianne-moore)) hires a young escort ([Amanda Seyfried](https://www.edgepedia.org/amanda-seyfried)) to test whether her husband (Liam Neeson) is having an affair, with consequences that turn the story into a psychological thriller.[1](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/chloe) • [2](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/chloe/) The screenplay is by Erin Cressida Wilson, and the film is a remake of Anne Fontaine's 2003 French film *Nathalie…*, of which StudioCanal is the original copyright holder.[2](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/chloe/) • [3](https://www.screendaily.com/e1-picks-up-egoyans-chloe-for-canada/5004770.article) It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was distributed by Sony Pictures Classics.[3](https://www.screendaily.com/e1-picks-up-egoyans-chloe-for-canada/5004770.article) • [2](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/chloe/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writer | Atom Egoyan; screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson[2](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/chloe/) |
| Source | Remake of Anne Fontaine's 2003 French film *Nathalie…*; StudioCanal holds the original copyright[3](https://www.screendaily.com/e1-picks-up-egoyans-chloe-for-canada/5004770.article) |
| Principal cast | Julianne Moore (Catherine), Liam Neeson (David), Amanda Seyfried (Chloe), Max Thieriot (Michael)[2](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/chloe/) |
| Countries | United States, Canada, France[4](https://dafilms.com/film/13178-chloe) |
| Running time / rating | 96 minutes; rated R[2](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/chloe/) |
| Key crew | Paul Sarossy (cinematography), Susan Shipton (editing), Mychael Danna (music)[4](https://dafilms.com/film/13178-chloe) |
| Critical aggregate | Metascore of 49 from 33 reviews[5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1352824/criticreviews/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Catherine Stewart, a doctor, and her husband David, a professor of music, appear to have an ideal life with their 17-year-old son Michael, but their marriage suffers from a loss of communication and intimacy.[6](https://www.sonyclassics.com/chloe/) When David misses his flight home from New York and the surprise party Catherine has planned, and she later reads a text message sent to his phone by one of his female students, her suspicion grows; when he denies intentionally staying away, she knows he has lied.[6](https://www.sonyclassics.com/chloe/)
At a restaurant, Catherine meets Chloe, an escort, and hires her to test David's fidelity.[6](https://www.sonyclassics.com/chloe/) Meeting regularly, Catherine absorbs the explicit details Chloe shares of her encounters with David, which ignites Catherine's jealousy and awakens long-dormant sensations, and she is drawn into a web of sexual desire that places her family in danger.[6](https://www.sonyclassics.com/chloe/) As the film progresses, Chloe manufactures fantastic tales of her erotic adventures with David.[7](https://journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/alls/article/download/6041/4303) After a plot twist and Catherine spurning her, Chloe becomes increasingly unhinged and seduces Catherine's teenage son, and the film concludes with an ironic restoration of the nuclear family.[2](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/chloe/)
## Origins and production
The project began as a remake of *Nathalie…* (2003), directed by Anne Fontaine and starring [Gérard Depardieu](https://www.edgepedia.org/gerard-depardieu), Fanny Ardant, and [Emmanuelle Béart](https://www.edgepedia.org/emmanuelle-beart).[8](https://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle%3D18442854.html) Producers Ivan Reitman and [Tom Pollock](https://www.edgepedia.org/tom-pollock) worked on the film for four years; by January 2009 the cast of Neeson, Moore, and Seyfried was set, and shooting was expected to begin on February 9 in Toronto.[8](https://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle%3D18442854.html) In the spring of 2007, Reitman sent the script to Egoyan, a fellow Canadian filmmaker.[9](https://www.sonyclassics.com/chloe/chloe_presskit.pdf)
**Setting and adaptation.** Egoyan moved the scenario from San Francisco to Toronto, and the film was shot in upmarket Toronto, unusually used as a location in its own right rather than standing in for an American city.[10](https://awfj.org/blog/2010/04/01/awfj-women-on-film-atom-egoyan-on-seyfried-sex-scenes-and-chloe-jen-yamato-interviews/) • [11](https://www.theartsdesk.com/film/chloe) Wilson described the story as a study of marriage: "It's about how, after 10 or 15 or 20 years of waking up every morning with someone, writing grocery lists, kissing each other on the cheek – how do you have hot sex?"[12](https://www.thewrap.com/study-marriage-chloe-faces-real-life-tragedy-7284/) She joked on set that she "started out writing this film when I was Chloe and I finished it when I was Catherine."[9](https://www.sonyclassics.com/chloe/chloe_presskit.pdf)
**Neeson's loss.** Production was interrupted by a real-life tragedy: [Liam Neeson](https://www.edgepedia.org/liam-neeson) was filming *Chloe* when his wife, [Natasha Richardson](https://www.edgepedia.org/natasha-richardson), died, and although he returned at a later date to film a few "critical" scenes, it is unclear whether screenplay alterations were needed to accommodate his limited availability.[13](https://www.reelviews.net/reelviews/chloe) The film screened at the 2009 [Toronto International Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/toronto-international-film-festival) to a packed audience of press and industry insiders, and E1 Entertainment picked it up for Canadian distribution in advance of the premiere.[12](https://www.thewrap.com/study-marriage-chloe-faces-real-life-tragedy-7284/) • [3](https://www.screendaily.com/e1-picks-up-egoyans-chloe-for-canada/5004770.article)
## Cast
Julianne Moore plays Dr. Catherine Stewart. At the time, Moore had recently appeared in *Blindness* and *Savage Grace*, had wrapped [Tom Ford](https://www.edgepedia.org/tom-ford)'s *A Single Man* with [Colin Firth](https://www.edgepedia.org/colin-firth), and was the ninth person in Academy history to receive two acting Oscar nominations in the same year, for *Far From Heaven* and *The Hours*.[6](https://www.sonyclassics.com/chloe/) Liam Neeson, whose credits include his Oscar-nominated role in *Schindler's List* and the January 2009 release *Taken*, plays David.[6](https://www.sonyclassics.com/chloe/) Amanda Seyfried, coming off the hit *Mamma Mia!* and the HBO series *Big Love*, plays the title character.[6](https://www.sonyclassics.com/chloe/) [Max Thieriot](https://www.edgepedia.org/max-thieriot) plays Michael; the supporting cast includes R.H. Thomson, Nina Dobrev, and Julie Khaner.[6](https://www.sonyclassics.com/chloe/)
## Reception
The film received mixed reviews, with a Metascore of 49 based on 33 reviews.[5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1352824/criticreviews/) Roger Ebert of the *Chicago Sun-Times* scored it 88, writing that it is "not the kind of movie that depends on the certainty of an ending. It's more about how things continue."[5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1352824/criticreviews/) The *Hollywood Reporter*'s Michael Rechtshaffen (70) praised Moore and Neeson for underplaying their roles, lending Wilson's dialogue "an unexpected, palpable poignancy."[5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1352824/criticreviews/) At the negative end, Anthony Lane of *The New Yorker* (30) called the film an "unsmiling porno-farce," and Joshua Rothkopf of *Time Out* (20) found it "trapped in a tepid zone between quality trash and pretentious psychodrama."[5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1352824/criticreviews/) Variety's Todd McCarthy wrote that "sexual suspicion and game-playing spiral down from the exotically intriguing to outright silliness."[5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1352824/criticreviews/)
Critics divided the film roughly in half. Andrew Schenker in *Slant Magazine* credited the first half with efficient storytelling and a provocative, if limited, exploration of sexual identity, jealousy, and narrative deception, but judged that after the plot twist it devolves into a fairly conventional thriller.[2](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/chloe/) James Berardinelli of ReelViews called it another disappointment from a director struggling to regain the footing of *Exotica* and *[The Sweet Hereafter](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-sweet-hereafter-film)*.[13](https://www.reelviews.net/reelviews/chloe) Amber Wilkinson at Eye for Film wrote that once a viewer accepts the B-movie plot, the film's A-movie trappings, including Egoyan's use of glass and clean lines mirroring Catherine's emotional emptiness, make it enjoyable.[14](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/chloe-film-review-by-amber-wilkinson)
## Themes and interpretation
Egoyan's recurring concern with identity and storytelling carries over from his previous film *Adoration* (2008): *Chloe* is in part concerned with the way a story can affect a life, and with narration as a medium for reimagining reality.[15](https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/2024240314/2010-03-25/ed-1/seq-23.pdf) • [2](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/chloe/) The Japan Times identified one of Egoyan's signature themes as the link between identity and sexual communication, or the lack of it.[16](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2011/05/27/films/film-reviews/chloe/) An academic study reads the film through mimetic desire and cinematic confinement, with Chloe manufacturing tales of erotic adventures with David.[7](https://journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/alls/article/download/6041/4303) Scholarly work on the film's climax argues that, having expunged the lesbian relationship, the ending reaffirms heterosexuality and the family, while its staging of the family's affectionate looks across a crowded room ambiguates that stability.[17](https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/155641/1/Bettinson_YWCCT_2020.pdf) The film is also noted as an example of the erotic thriller, a genre that peaked in the 1990s.[18](https://www.autostraddle.com/chloe-2009-review/)
## References
1. [CHLOE, Sony Pictures Entertainment](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/chloe)
2. [Review: Chloe, Slant Magazine (Andrew Schenker)](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/chloe/)
3. [E1 picks up Egoyan's Chloe for Canada, Screen Daily (Denis Seguin)](https://www.screendaily.com/e1-picks-up-egoyans-chloe-for-canada/5004770.article)
4. [Chloe, dafilms.com](https://dafilms.com/film/13178-chloe)
5. [Chloe (2009) Metacritic reviews, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1352824/criticreviews/)
6. [CHLOE synopsis and cast, Sony Pictures Classics](https://www.sonyclassics.com/chloe/)
7. [Mirror Image: A Study of the Power Politics of Mimetic Desire and Cinematic Confinement in Chloe (2009), Advances in Language and Literary Studies](https://journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/alls/article/download/6041/4303)
8. [De Nathalie à Chloé…, AlloCiné (Laëtitia Forhan with Variety)](https://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle%3D18442854.html)
9. [Chloe Production Notes, Sony Pictures Classics press kit](https://www.sonyclassics.com/chloe/chloe_presskit.pdf)
10. [Atom Egoyan on Seyfried, Sex Scenes and Chloe, AWFJ (Jen Yamato)](https://awfj.org/blog/2010/04/01/awfj-women-on-film-atom-egoyan-on-seyfried-sex-scenes-and-chloe-jen-yamato-interviews/)
11. [Chloe, The Arts Desk (Veronica Lee)](https://www.theartsdesk.com/film/chloe)
12. [Study of Marriage in Chloe Faces Real-Life Tragedy, TheWrap (Sharon Waxman)](https://www.thewrap.com/study-marriage-chloe-faces-real-life-tragedy-7284/)
13. [Chloe review, Reelviews (James Berardinelli)](https://www.reelviews.net/reelviews/chloe)
14. [Chloe review, Eye for Film (Amber Wilkinson)](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/chloe-film-review-by-amber-wilkinson)
15. [Movies by Molly Templeton, Eugene Weekly](https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/2024240314/2010-03-25/ed-1/seq-23.pdf)
16. [Chloe review, The Japan Times (Kaori Shoji)](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2011/05/27/films/film-reviews/chloe/)
17. [Atom Egoyan's remake heightens the lesbian leg, Lancaster University eprints (Lucy Bettinson)](https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/155641/1/Bettinson_YWCCT_2020.pdf)
18. [The Music Ruins the Lesbian Sex in Chloe, Autostraddle](https://www.autostraddle.com/chloe-2009-review/)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Erotic thrillers and dramas*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license