Erin Doherty anchors Alice Seabright’s six-part series, one that never loses sight of the incredible strain of pretending to be someone you’re not.
This year as has been pointed out many times so far, 2022 has been a treasure trove of stories about scammers. In the world of television, spring has brought many stories to the past that have linked people to a false sense of security that tells how they have deceived people on the path to wealth and a tremendous amount of culture. Read also : The politics of healthy aging: myths and facts. Of course, the technological and entrepreneurial climbers of the 2010s have no monopoly on grift, not in real or fictional worlds.
Released in the UK in February and coming to Prime Video this week, the new psychological drama “Chloe” makes it the perfect (and somehow necessary) book fabric for a mid-year trend to be much bigger than self-deceptive situations. imagine.
Like these other stories, “Chloe” begins on a modest scale. Becky Green (Erin Doherty) spends her idle moments moving around on social media while caring for her sick mother and working on some temporary jobs. With headphones and the appearance of her application habits looking like the dead eyes of someone who loses all account of time, Becky seems particularly taken aback by the profile of a Chloe Fairbourne (Poppy Gilbert). The opening scenes of the series are full of elegant selfies from Chloe, cheerful dinners and honest moments planned with great acquaintances.
Sensing a chance at her new concert, Becky decides to use some key intelligence to fail an elegant gala. That’s where Becky launches into an endless chain of small lies and fabricated credentials. She soon sees herself escaping into a whole alternative life as Sasha, and has told new colleagues around the world that she has been well connected to working as a live events coordinator. When Becky discovers that she has found Chloe dead through her usual online routine, she puts herself in a position to enter Sasha Chloe’s inner circle thanks to her new confidence to recreate herself in the image of her obsession.
Luke Varley / Banijay Rights Limited
“People greet themselves in a group by pretending to be someone else” has a long tradition in fiction, but writer / director Alice Seabright “Chloe” understands that the most important element in a story like this is clarity. There is simplicity and efficiency here in how to launch all the various pieces. Becky’s slow construction of Sasha is as responsible and rigorous as the show, made up of small-scale manipulations by frontline staff and helpers. While the difference between where you start and end eventually is deliberately staggering, none of the steps involved require any herculean effort to justify it (art installations, yoga sessions, impromptu hearts over glasses of expensive wine).
In the process, “Chloe” is as tuned as the click she wants to infiltrate with Becky. Chloe’s widow Elliot (Billy Howle) is trying to balance her grief with a candidacy for public office. Livia’s (Pippa Bennett-Warner) best friend is still significantly shaken by the sight of Chloe or the mere mention. Josh (Brandon Michael Hall), a resident of the art world, and Richard (Jack Farthing) are skeptical of Sasha’s sudden appearance in a group of friends, introducing the idea that Becky’s role is constantly hindered in “Chloe”.
Rather than looking inside Becky in a world that only slowly sees him from a comfortable distance, Seabright finds all of his actions much more indifferent. Along with Doherty’s calibrated performance, Sasha becomes a constant logistical puzzle rather than a trick of virtuoso flourishes. Becky’s occasional look at Sasha’s previous life is one of despair and insecurity and self-doubt. One of the clever elements of “Chloe” is maintaining all of this second invention, even as she is shedding light on the inconsistencies in Sasha’s biography.
“Chloe” reflects these doubts with a structural ambiguity. The more Becky becomes an excuse for Sasha to do an amateur detective job the more time she spills, the more her intrusive thoughts spill over into what the audience is taking on. Becky’s dreams and nightmares are marked by imaginary phone calls and theoretical risk situations, all threatening to shatter this well-crafted facade that has led some new friends to accept her as real. They’re all part of “Chloe’s” overall tapestry, which also has some weird and mischievous transitions of the scene from one place to another Becky.
York Tillyer / Banijay Rights Limited
Perhaps the key to the success of “Chloe” is the way it touches on an almost universal desire to be understood and valued. Becky is much more involved in Chloe’s life plan than she could have imagined, but it’s not because Doherty acts as a model of charm and refinement. There are those when Becky is put into irresponsibility, who pays attention to a detail that puts Sasha in danger. But “Chloe” shows how powerful it is to include someone in your life as an active force in friendship. It’s easy to rationalize some weird questions and coincidences when someone is eager to fill a gap with their helpful source. Small courtesies, whatever the intention, add up quickly.
All of this is filtered from Becky’s point of view, with Seabright sometimes putting the audience directly in his sight. Then it’s even more worrying, as Becky begins to lose touch with who she is, what she’s doing, and why she’s continuing on the path she set out on. This is not a story of determination of brute force. There’s a delicacy and slipperiness here that seems organic to the story of a person trying to claim a little control in an otherwise volatile life. “Chloe” eventually unites around Chloe’s group of friends, and each of them, despite her attitudes and the photographic evidence in that feed, shows how she takes on the same doubts Becky has.
These whirlwinds of loyalty and honesty testing would be modest without a firm trajectory of what Becky’s decisions mean to everyone involved. But Seabright – along with series director Amanda Boyle and writers Kayleigh Llewellyn and Poppy Cogan – chooses not to dive too far into the artificial, despite the premise of the series. In the face of a wave of similar spectacles disguised as lies, every step away from the truth in “Chloe” carries real weight with it.
Grade: B+
“Chloe” is now available to play in Prime Video. This may interest you : New York City Developer Launches Life Science Ventures.
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