Mother
Nobody loves a good mystery as much as me, but unfortunately Hollywood seems reluctant to appease me. Mother, the latest film from director Bong Joon-Ho, is a swirling mystery of uncommon intelligence. It's premise is deceptively simple, but about halfway through you realize that there is a lot more going on than you were prepared for. Kim Hye-Ja puts on a fearless performance as Hye-Ja, an aging mother who has spent nearly all of her adult life taking care of her slow-witted son, Do-Joon. Do-Joon isn't a bad kid, but easily manipulated, particularly by his best friend, Jin-Tae. Do-Joon is a few doughnuts short of a dozen, occasionally prone to bursts of violence, especially when a certain unflattering word is hurled in his direction.
A murder takes place late one night. The victim was a young schoolgirl, known by the gossipy town as being...loose, morally. Ok, she's a bit of a slut. Do-Joon was in town that night drinking. Evidence of his presence was found near her body. The cops have no trouble railroading the poor guy into admitting his guilt, but Hye-Ja isn't standing for it. She knows her son is innocent and being setup. The cops won't listen to a poor woman like her. She throws herself into discovering the truth behind the vicious crime and her son's place in it.
The twists in Mother are subtle. You don't realize just how important they are until it's almost too late. The central question, whether Do-Joon is guilty becomes secondary to the far more intriguing question of how far Hye-Ja will go to prove her son's innocence. It's fascinating to watch this fiery, determined woman risk everything in the face of public scorn and scrutiny. In her way, she's as terrifying as any hard-nosed detective, if not moreso due to her personal stake in the outcome.
Chloe
Amanda Seyfried(Dear John, Alpha Dog) as a mysterious, sultry seductress? No longer just in my wildest dreams. In Chloe, the actress sheds her perfectly honed good girl persona(and her clothes) in an erotic thriller that's basically high class trash. It's a classier, more erotic cousin to last year's Obsessed, minus all the racial tension thank goodness. No, the tension here is purely sexual, emotional. The still strikingly beautiful Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson play Catherine and David, a successful couple with a troubled son. The two have been married for a long time. Their love is different than it used to be, more friendly than romantic. She meets, possibly by chance, a gorgeous young woman named Chloe. Chloe has a way of getting what she wants. She is an emotional chameleon, able to be any and all things whenever she pleases in order to gain her heart's desire. Chloe is hired to seduce David, just enough to test him but not so far as to find out what color boxers he's wearing, if you catch my drift.
Things don't quite go as planned. Do they ever? Chloe reports back to Catherine on their multiple trysts, but it's clear something isn't quite right. Chloe is a powerfully sensual woman, and her interest in the family goes way beyond the terms of the original arrangement. The question is whether or not she's going to get what she wants this time, and how far will she go to get it?
Chloe is a smarter, sexier film of this sort than we've seen in years, thanks mostly to the direction of Atom Egoyan(The Sweet Hereafter), who knows just how to play the obvious sexual energies between Chloe and Catherine. Yes, Chloe and Catherine. The tension between these two almost brought back fond memories of Naomi Watts and Laura Herring in Mulholland Drive. Whether or not we get any sweet girl on girl action I will leave for you to find out on your own. Never does the plot devolve into lame bursts of violence(no rabbits in the cooking pot!), instead the torment is purely emotional and unabating. Unfortunately the film is done in by a softball conclusion that is done purely for shock value, but ends up just fizzling out.
Nobody cares about all that. The real question for us meat heads is this:
Anne Hathaway's cans in Havoc
? Or Amanda Seyfried's cannons in Chloe? Simple.
? Or Amanda Seyfried's cannons in Chloe? Simple.
Seyfried > Hathaway
