Popular reviews

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  Review by Auteur ★★★★★ 8

  You can tell after the first ten minutes of watching Clouds Of Sils Maria that it is not a Hollywood production; one, because Juliette Binoche's character Maria is still alive, and two, because Kristen Stewart is actually allowed to act, and she's pretty great at it by the way.

  In yet another year of middling roles for women, Sils Maria is a dream come true. Masterfully directed by Olivier Assayas, the film centers on an aging actress preparing to play the older, more pitiful female role in a revival of a stageplay that made her famous years ago when she played the younger, sexier role. Life imitates art, as it so often does, and an admittedly shallow conceit is given…

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  Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★½ 3

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Such a layered work; a film not only about the process of an actor coming to terms with a difficult role, but also about a woman coming to terms with the fact that she is getting older.

  This is just my completely subjective
  interpretation of the film's ending.

  Spoilers for the remainder of the review:

  Val's disappearance - and I believe it could be argued that Val was a wholly symbolic presence in the film, a representation and/or reminder of Maria's youth, but I'm not behind the argument that she only existed within Maria's imagination as I've heard some argue; her external social life would be inexplicable then.

  I merely think that, while her enigmatic disappearance occurred under quite mysterious…

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★★★ 1

  A heady psychosexual drama that’s steeped in dense anxieties and rich European glamour (the film was partially funded by Chanel), Olivier Assayas’s latest finds the French auteur at the very top of his game. Combining the acute professional paranoia of All About Eve with the existential crisis of Persona, Clouds of Sils Maria stars the remarkably accomplished Juliette Binoche as Maria Enders, a fading star who’s agreed to be in a revival of the play that made her famous as a young ingenue. This time, however, Maria isn’t performing the part of the seductive teenager awakening to the power of her sexuality; she’s playing the older woman who’s wrapped around the girl’s finger. Retreating to the Swiss Alps with her unfailingly honest assistant (Kristen Stewart, a deadpan revelation), Maria begins a rehearsal process that will force her to grapple with the presentness of her past.

  READ THE FULL REVIEW ON TIME OUT

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  Review by Willow Maclay ★★★★ 2

  Kristen Stewart covertly saying "I fucking ruled in the Twilight movies" with both her middle fingers in the air

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  Review by Hari Nef 3

  everything in this movie is good and not bad

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  Review by Alex Kittle ★★★★ 2

  KRISTEN STEWART AND JULIETTE BINOCHE DO NOT KISS EVEN AT ALL BUT I GUESS IT'S STILL A GOOD MOVIE OR WHATEVER

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  Review by Melissa Tamminga ★★★★½ 22

  "The text is like an object. It's going to change perspective depending on where you're standing."

  And as the director, Klaus Diesterweg (Lars Eidinger) tells the journalist, the experience of the play, Maloja Snake, will be different for every audience member, each bringing his or her own personal subjective weight to bear on that elusive textual object.

  So, I have to ask, would this film have played differently for me were I 20-something, instead of 40-something? Would I, perhaps, be more interested in Valentine (Kristen Stewart) or Jo-Ann (Chloë Grace Moretz), than Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche), a woman confronted by youth - as something startlingly distant from herself - at every turn? I am drawn to Valentine, particularly, of course,…

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★½ 3

  67/100

  Second viewing, no change, though I moved Kristen Stewart from Supporting Actress to lead and her performance is now officially my favorite of the year (so far) across all four categories. What cinches it is how little acting Valentine does when she's running lines with Maria—her register doesn't alter in the slightest, yet she's still clearly giving a performance rather than just providing cues, which only serves to wind Maria up further. I'd like the film considerably more if I could find a coherent place for Jo-Ann Ellis in this dynamic of vulnerability and power, or if Assayas seemed to even vaguely understand Hollywood celebrity culture. (One can charitably interpret the superhero movie as parody, but I honestly have…

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  Review by Lucy ★★½ 3

  kstew is really giving ellen page a run for her money with that wardrobe

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  Review by fran hoepfner ★★★★½

  the cut to La Binoche in 3D glasses

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  Review by preston ★★★★ 3

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  It's uncanny how Assayas' movies open up for me on second viewing (same thing happened with Irma Vep and Summer Hours), it doesn't happen with any other director. Maybe it's because he tends to present a question then explore its different facets (the old joke of calling him 'Olivier Essayist' is in fact appropriate), so knowing what to look for in advance really helps.

  In this case, for instance, the question is what prompts Helena (in the play, and by extension Maria the actress) to be destroyed by her young assistant Sigrid, i.e. what's the relationship between them. Are they opposites, as Maria claims in the early conversation with the director (a key scene), or is Helena in fact the…

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 5

  Maybe it's just because I'm still so angry. Maybe it's because I can't stop thinking about how people see me/us. Maybe it's because I'm just a dirty-minded woman, but I feel like leaving the sexual tension unspoken, unaddressed, shifts sexuality away from being a part of the story, a part of the characters, a viable, breathing, powerful thing into being a tool, an object used to propel plot and theme rather than a facet of their being. It's a lever to help a character who insists that she's straight; this feels a little like an insult. This is not to say that having Binoche and Stewart kiss (or fuck) would have added to the film, but there could easily have…