Review of Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) by Foxgrove — 10 Jun 2015

This ‘All About Eve’ wannabe suffers from an excess of talk and is pretentious in the extreme. Lacking ‘Eve’s style, wit and deliciously rendered performances this film irritates more than it entertains.

Juliette Binoche plays Maria Enders, a mature actress who is approached to star in a play that launched her career 20 years earlier. This time she has been asked to interpret the older role of a middle aged business woman, a lesbian who is being manipulated by her young female assistant.

In reality, her own assistant played by Kirsten Stewart coaxes her into playing the role. Thus the heart of the film becomes about the two actresses sparring with each other as Binoche tries to come to grips with a role with which she is unable to identify.

As these discussions and the subsequent confrontations change their working dynamic the line between the play and reality becomes blurred. As a story outline it all sounds very promising and the actresses, particularly Stewart, give it their best shot.

However, they are ultimately let down by the material which disintegrates badly in the mid- section as the two women disagree over aspects of the play and characters. Lovers of pretension will surely run out of superlatives for all the mumbo jumbo spouted.

Others, myself included, will merely disengage and lose interest. Surprisingly the film actually rallies a little when Stewart disappears from the scene. This is in not a reflection on her performance, which is probably the best in the film, but it gives a little more mystery and anticipation as to where the drama is going.

Unfortunately, a rather ambiguous parting moment is also the final nail in the coffin for a film that never fully gets you on its side.