Even in his more naturalistic films, Egoyan has always taken an arch, mannered approach to dialogue and performance, bringing a sense of alienation to even the most intimate character relationships. Like fellow Canadian sicko David Cronenberg, he seems to take perverse pleasure in mixing the erotic with the off-putting, and both Where the Truth Lies<\/em> and Chloe<\/em> seduce the viewer with explicit sex scenes that carry an undercurrent of manipulation and transgression. The characters are as perverted as the filmmaker, but they\u2019re more reluctant to express that\u2014at least at first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both begin with voiceover narration from their central seductresses, describing their different but perhaps complementary professions. After a brief look back at one of the final performances from legendary 1950s showbiz duo Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon) and Vince Collins (Colin Firth), Where the Truth Lies<\/em> shifts ahead to 1972, with young journalist Karen O\u2019Connor (Alison Lohman) recounting her efforts to coax the now-reclusive entertainers into participating in a book she\u2019s writing. Amanda Seyfried\u2019s Chloe also explains her strategies for coaxing men into giving her what she wants, although in her case that\u2019s her fee as a high-class escort. Both characters put on acts in order to achieve their goals, maneuvering wealthy, powerful men into their desired outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both of them also become dangerously obsessed with their older targets, blurring the lines between the professional and the personal. These films could be categorized as erotic thrillers, although Egoyan seems less interested in building suspense than in finding twisted ways for the characters to hurt each other. Karen strikes a deal with Vince for unlimited interview access, in exchange for a hefty payment from her publisher. The relationship between Chloe and married gynecologist Catherine Stewart (Julianne Moore) also begins as a business transaction, but there\u2019s an erotic charge to all of these negotiations from the start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t usually meet with women,\u201d Chloe tells Catherine during their first formal sit-down, after a chance encounter in a restaurant bathroom. Catherine is initially defensive, assuring Chloe that she\u2019s not there for herself, but rather for her college professor husband David (Liam Neeson), whom she suspects of cheating on her. Catherine hires Chloe to tempt David and see how he responds, but she\u2019s clearly the one responding to Chloe, even at this early stage. The covert mission is just a conduit for channeling the attraction between Chloe and Catherine, and Karen\u2019s book functions largely the same way, especially once the movie reveals that she\u2019s been intertwined with Lanny and Vince since childhood, appearing on their annual benefit telethon as a polio survivor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That telethon is the clearest indication that Lanny and Vince are variations on Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, but Where the Truth Lies<\/em> isn\u2019t a Hollywood expos\u00e9 any more than Chloe<\/em> is about campus politics. The characters\u2019 careers provide a framework for their erotic explorations: Lanny and Vince use their fame to bed as many women as they like, while also remaining emotionally distant from any relationship except their own partnership. Years later, Karen uses her position as a journalist to gain access to the men she\u2019s been fixated on since she was a preteen, and that adoration transforms into sexual desire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a doctor, Catherine clinically describes the process of an orgasm to a patient who\u2019s never had one, and later she uses her medical skills as a pretext for touching Chloe, in cinema\u2019s most sensual bandaging of a scraped knee. Chloe\u2019s status as a prostitute offers an excuse for openly discussing sexual practices, and she takes advantage of that expectation to give Catherine aggressively detailed recaps of her sessions with David.<\/p>\n\n\n Egoyan presents those recaps as gauzy, impressionistic flashbacks, and he does the same in Where the Truth Lies<\/em> when Karen gains access to chapters from Lanny\u2019s unpublished memoir. There\u2019s an almost Sirkian lushness to the 1950s scenes in Where the Truth Lies<\/em>, in contrast to their sordid events, as Lanny and Vince become entangled in the accidental (or is it?) death of a waitress at their fancy hotel. Cinematographer Paul Sarossy and composer Mychael Danna, both longtime Egoyan collaborators, give these films a sophisticated gloss and elegant grace that makes their lurid subject matter feel even naughtier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The actors, too, know exactly what they\u2019re doing, balancing serious emotions with sly melodrama. Lohman delivers breathy hard-boiled narration almost like a parody of a neo-noir femme fatale, but she also shows the vulnerability of this emerging writer who has to put on a front of experience and expertise in order to further her interests. While Firth is sometimes too sulky, Bacon continues the delightful nastiness of his role in another underappreciated erotic thriller, John McNaughton\u2019s Wild Things<\/em><\/a>, making Lanny both volatile and alluring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seyfried\u2019s wide-eyed innocence as Chloe makes it easy for both Catherine and the viewer to be drawn in, and Moore finds the pathos in this middle-aged wife and mother who feels like her youthful vibrancy and attractiveness has faded. There\u2019s a level of lecherous anticipation to their inevitable coupling, and Egoyan follows through on his playful teases to the audience. It\u2019s clear that this is a lesbian movie directed by a man (albeit from a screenplay by a woman, Secretary<\/em>\u2019s Erin Cressida Wilson), but Egoyan is not unaware of the male gaze he\u2019s representing. It\u2019s no coincidence that David, the main male figure in this unhinged love triangle, is increasingly cut out of the proceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Where the Truth Lies<\/em>, the deconstruction of the male gaze is even more explicit. After convincing Karen to take some mysterious, unnamed pills, Vince reveals that he\u2019s brought along another young woman, and he encourages them to pleasure each other while he sits back and watches. It\u2019s literally lesbian sex engineered for a man\u2019s benefit, even if the women appear to be having a good time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Viewers can enjoy the scene in the same way that Vince does, and Egoyan doesn\u2019t judge them for it. But there\u2019s more going on in these films than mere titillation. They\u2019re the cinematic equivalent of literary smut, and Egoyan makes no apologies for his highbrow prurience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cChloe\u201d and \u201cWhere the Truth Lies\u201d are streaming on the<\/em> Criterion Channel<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/where-the-truth-1024x576.jpg\")
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