Review of Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) by Spangle — 28 Mar 2016

Clouds of Sils Maria is a very good film from Olivier Assayas with fantastic acting, a compelling story, and beautiful cinematography. Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, and Chloe Grace Moretz, are all phenomenal here and turn in great performances.

Stewart was my personal favorite, though the against type performance from Moretz was really interesting and well done. The story is very dense, but can be boiled down to being about an aging woman having a relationship with a younger woman, after having the shoe be on the other foot when she was younger.

Now that she is older, she struggles to grapple with this age and the shoe being on the other foot, due to her own approach to the relationship when she was younger. In this way, the film is a compelling look at aging, both on stage and in life, and at relationships of all kinds.

Finally, the cinematography is fantastic. The film has repeated gratuitous shots of landscapes in the Swiss alps and thank God for that because is pure eye candy. The cinematography in non-landscape scenes is also great though and that point cannot be understated.

Clouds of Sils Maria is a great little film that really deserves more attention from film lovers due its well-written and well-directed approach to its subjects.