Directed by Atom Egoyan. Starring Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, and Amanda Seyfried. Rated 18A. Opens Friday, March 26, at the Cinemark Tinseltown and the Ridge Theatre

In Atom Egoyan’s adaptation of France’s Nathalie”¦, Amanda Seyfried plays the rechristened title character, who comes between a long-married husband and wife already fraying around the edges. Actually, most of the unravelling is happening to wife Catherine (Julianne Moore), a doctor now fretting about husband David (Liam Neeson), a music professor who’s only getting more attractive to his students as he gets older and they get hotter.

Catherine has been turning colder in general, and lately she hasn’t even had much time for their almost-grown son (Max Thieriot), who is being ignored by both parents. Instead, her energies focus on a less-than-thought-through plan to hire the attractive escort (Seyfried) she spies carrying on near her Toronto workplace. See, if she throws the free-spirited Chloe into David’s direction, then she’ll know if he’s easily led astray.

The fun of the movie—for us, anyway—is that everyone has an agenda that’s considerably different from what’s expected of them, different even than what they expect of themselves. Of course, in screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson’s iteration, these are people who think paying for sex is a kind of intellectual inquiry, so it’s hard to muster too much investment in their emotions. A subplot involving the son is notably undeveloped, Seyfried doesn’t always hold her own against the veteran players, and the story could have lingered on its twists more playfully. But Chloe offers some unusually kinky thrills, and downtown Toronto is practically a fourth character in the proceedings.

For those who need to know, the ménage-í -nutsos in the 2003 version consisted of Gérard Depardieu, Fanny Ardant, and Emmanuelle Béart—a threesome quite a few moviegoers might risk their happy home lives to be part of.