Chloe

The erotic thriller.

Have I scared you? Is it one of those genres, like the zombie comedy, where maybe, at best, there are two good films, and from that point on filmmakers should just stop?

My two favourite erotic thrillers are Final Analysis (dubbed into French) and Match Point (dubbed into Italian). I saw Final Analysis on a lone cycling trip around France, way back in 1992. It was a miserable and sad affair and my cycling trip was no better. I burnt my arms on the first day of cycling. I cycled 70 miles a day (usually in rain after the first and only day of sun) and then, in a forlorn seaside resort callec Pornic, I sat in a hut and watched Kim Basinger, Uma Thurman and Richard Gere frolic around, speak French, get nasty and do something with a lighthouse. That’s all I remember.

Last year I ran away to Sardinia for four days. There I saw Match Point with Scarlett Johanssen and Jonathan Rhys Meyers jabbering away in Italian. The holiday was a punishment for something or other, and so, duly, I enjoyed the film.

Today I went to see Chloe. I wasn’t punishing myself for anything. I had gone into town to see The Hurt Locker, but it was sold out. So Chloe beckoned. Sadly it was in English.

What was Atom Egoyan thinking? I don’t know all of his work but I have seen Exotica and Felicia’s Journey, the latter based on the book of the same name by the fine short story writer, William Trevor.

See them. Then see Chloe if you want a laugh and you like looking at tits and women kissing women.

Ok, I’m being flippant. Just.

But really, honestly, despite a few attempts, and despite a final lingering shot that suggests the truth lies elsewhere from where we have been shown to see it lies (no, I don’t know if that sentence makes sense either, but hey, I’m writing this in the foyer of the RFH and my beer’s finished and I’m off home soon, but I’m just suggesting that Atom wants us to think more, and maybe, just maybe, he knows this material isn’t up to what he can do best)… now, where was I? Cripes, this post is like an erotic thriller without the thrills. Or tits. Merci blah blah.

So, yes, I’m trying to be serious. Like the film.

But come on! Would anyone really cheat on Julianne Moore?

Sorry, I am trying.

Did I tell you Julianne Moore strips off regularly? As does that girl from Mamma Mia. And they snog. You really should see it.

Poor old Liam Neeson. I like him. I saw him in The Plough and the Stars at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre when I was a teenager. There was something about him. It stuck with me and it came as no surprise when he cropped up as a bigwig in films. Heck, I almost felt I had discovered him.

Release the Kraken!