Becky is hunched over the kitchen table, eating her cereal and staring intently at her phone. Again and again she scrolls through the Instagram account of Chloe, her former favorite childhood friend. She seems to lead the perfect life: good looking, exciting friends and a loving husband. However, when Becky discovers the quote “To die by your side” on her Instagram account one morning, she notices: Something is wrong. Chloe is no longer alive.
From there, Becky slips into the psychological thriller series chloe (Amazon, produced by the BBC) spiraling into a whirlwind of grief and curiosity – she needs to know why Chloe died so suddenly. She asks herself whether she could have prevented Chloe’s death and begins to research obsessively. In return, she even adopts a different identity, now calling herself “Sasha”, and as such stalks Chloe’s friends – at the country club, at dinner, at a vernissage. Chloe’s chic, colorful influencer world fascinates Becky and stands in stark contrast to Becky’s mother’s dreary apartment. But not only visually it goes back and forth, but also emotionally.
Because as much as Becky enjoys this new life, she is haunted by the question of what really happened to Chloe, who was once her best friend before she broke ties. Becky is trying desperately to continue her role-playing game and is torn between grief and delusion. This disturbing mix of emotions is played by Erin Doherty (known as Princess Anne in The Crown) convincingly cold and tense. With teary eyes and grim facial expressions, she moves further and further away from the world and the people around her.
“Chloe” describes a search for one’s own, self-corrected truth
Becky’s job, family and romantic relationships suffer. She becomes more emotional, but also more careless. The control over her double life is slipping more and more out of her hands. And yet Chloe drives her to keep going. Becky’s obsession is reminiscent of the psychological thriller series You, in which the protagonist Joe is obsessed with a woman. Or to the protagonist in Inventing Anna, driven by greed, tries to sneak into high society, but Becky acts impulsively, less calculatingly. Director Alice Seabright, who starred Sex Education a brilliant coming-of-age series has succeeded, presented with chloe a darker series. Visually, the director’s often gaudy style is reflected, for example in the colorful scenes of the influencer world, as a whole chloe but much calmer and more mature.
chloe depicts the search for Becky’s own, self-adjusted truth. A truth born of obsessive delusion where Chloe and Becky are still close friends. And although the tension of the series flattens out again and again in between, almost getting lost in exclusively observational scenes, the unconditional question in this very watchable series remains: What happened to Chloe? And this story eventually takes a surprisingly destructive turn.
Chloe, six episodes, up Amazon Prime.
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