Chloe (Atom Egoyan, 2009)

When Julianne Moore, queen of the highly-strung relationship drama, is cast as a wife who suspects her husband of infidelity, you know things will get nebulous and pear-shaped sooner or later. Accordingly it's clear that when she pays a high-class call girl to test his limits, the complications due are to be self-inflicted.
Egoyan has always been fixated with kinkiness, but at least this time round it's hardly a strong suit, soft-focus, soft core and rather cringeworthy altogether. Where the film scores far higher is on fine detail in the characterisation, conveyed by a solid cast, even if Amanda Seyfried as the call girl looks too much like an adolescent frog to convince as a sexually irresistible force. The twists that come as the film slides into thriller territory are also quite nifty, provided you're prepared to forgive the cheat technique of withholding vital information from the viewer.

5/10