Chloe’: Nothing more than ‘Swimfan’

So, “Chloe.” My question: When did Atom Egoyan become John Polson?

See, if you take away all the arty pretense, the name cast and Egoyan’s impressive resume, what you’re left with is pure genre. Eroticized genre. Stupidly plotted genre. But, underneath everything, nothing more than genre.

Sort of the way that “Swimfan,” Polson’s 2002 film starring Jesse Broadford and Ericka Christensen, is genre. Low-budget, “Fatal Attraction”-type feminine-revenge horror genre.

Egoyan is the director of such films as “Exotica” (1994), “The Sweet Hereafter” (1997) ” and “Adoration” (2008), each a study of melded plot lines and characterizations. Egoyan’s abilities to explore the drama of human interaction make his films always worth watching, even if they don’t always amount to much.

But he fails pretty much completely with “Chloe,” which has Julianne Moore playing a doctor who suspects her college-professor husband (Liam Neeson) of straying. When hubby misses his own birthday party, and wifey discovers a suspicious photo on his mobile phone, she … what? Confronts him? Leaves him? Confides in her best friends and seeks advice?

Nope. She picks up a call girl (Amanda Seyfried) named Chloe and pays her to seduce hubbykins. Makes perfect sense.

Even worse, she does nothing to check out the story that Chloe tells. Instead, she clearly is getting off on hearing how hubby can’t resist the attractions of … well, let’s face it. Seyfried is cute and she can sing (“Mama Mia!” proved that), and it turns out that she has a body that is positively Rubenesque . But her face has a kind of frog-like quality that Egoyan emphasizes every time he shoots her in close up. Which he does a lot.

Anyway, that leads to scenes where wifey cavorts in the shower with a water nozzle while, in her mind at least, hubby snuggles with Chloe in phone booths, etc. And all of this leads to tearful scenes of recrimination, guilt and confession. And this is just wifey trying to get sonny-boy (Max Theriot) not to shag his girlfriend in her presence.

If I reveal any more, you might not want to go and see “Chloe.” And maybe you should, seeing as it’s scheduled to leave AMC’s River Park Square Cinemas on Thursday (along with “The White Ribbon”).

Of course, you might not want to. And I wouldn’t blame you. Just go and rent “Swimfan” instead.

I’m sure you can find a cheap DVD copy somewhere.

Below : The trailer for “Chloe.”