Julianne Moore is
one of the finest actors you might not have noticed, though she has been
nominated for an Academy Award four times. She often appears in offbeat films
that prove challenging for critics and don’t quite meet box office expectations. Among her many movies are: Far From Heaven, The Big Lebowski, The Hours,
Savage Grace, The Kids Are All Right and A
Single Man. However, two of her films seemed to have slipped through the
cracks completely: Chloe, a semi-lovely
erotic puzzle and 6 Souls, a gamble
for even the most tolerant of audiences.
Chloe is a beautiful young woman confident she can bring
sexual happiness to others and apparently sees no reason she shouldn’t be paid
if that too brings pleasure to the other.
But nothing and no one are what they appear to be. It would be too easy
and very wrong to say too much. Liam Neeson plays the husband with a
roving eye, but is it any more than an appreciation of beauty in passing? Julianne
Moore is the wife who suspects her husband is having an affair. Is she more jealous
than hurt? Amanda Seyfried is Chloe,
the sex kitten who disturbs the entire dysfunctional family, including Max Theriot, the couple’s barely post
pubescent son. Atom Egoyan directed
this intelligent, steamy 2009 film.
The idea of dissociative identity disorder (multiple
personality) in fiction was a trend for a while. It was a great device for crime fiction in
particular (Think Psycho). In 6 Hours
(also released as Shelter), Julianne
Moore finds herself trying to unravel the five people inhabiting Jonathan Rhys Meyers body and
preventing the deaths that seem connected to them. It is meant to be a haunting
story of one powerful evil spirit trying to keep himself alive. The setting in part of Pennsylvania that time
forgot makes some haunting cinematic moments.
The original idea, the cast and the cinematography are promising. In the
end this is one of those films that can be watched and enjoyed with a talkative
friend.
As the nights get colder and the films won’t keep you awake
all on their own — though Chloe
(2013) has some fascinating twists — I’d suggest some Irish coffee as an accompaniment
to this double feature, most of your friends probably never heard of.
2 comments:
Thanks for your old gent detective novels and for your marvelous reviews here.
At first such a relationship between the older man and the young woman gave me pause. But in kind of a coincidental sequence, I've lately been reading about a bunch such relationships that were sound and worked--the marriage of Eugene O'Neil's daughter to Charlie Chaplin among them.
Not for me, certainly, but live and let live, I'd say now.
Thank you. Working on the 11th old gent detective novel as well as a few in the San Francisco mystery series. please keep reading, and your comments are welcome anytime.
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