AFI Fest Review: Clouds of Sils-Maria

Hollywood is not kind to women as they age.  Studios are always looking for the next hot young thing, relegating the older generation of actresses - women who have delivered dozens of powerful, all-time performances - to thankless roles, usually mothers with nothing to do.  Only a few, such as Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren, manage to continually snag meaty parts, because there are so few, so why not get the biggest possible names to dig into those precious few that there are.

These are the matters on the mind of Oliver Assayas's Clouds of Sils Maria, which finds againg actress Maria (Juliette Binoche) and her assistant Valentine (Kristen Stewart) retreating to the titular town so Maria can prepare for a new stage role.  The catch: she is playing the suicidal Helen in a revival of a play in which she originally played the part of the youthful, reckless Sigrid.  The passing of the torch to a wild younger actress (Chloe Grace Moretz) haunts Maria, who bristles at the prospect of finding common ground with a character whom she finds pathetic.

The film has great things to say, but unfortunately often falls into pretentious prattle.  We often read our actors through their characters, but in Clouds of Sils Maria, we are supposed to read the characters through the parts they're rehearsing, and the way they read them.  Valentine stands in as Sigrid during their private rehearsals, and the way she continually combats Maria's reading of the characters and the play itself puts viewers in the midst of an endless book club where every participant refuses to be told they are wrong.  The film draws its characters well, and both actresses deliver strong work (especially the joyously vulnerable Binoche), but it continues to fill in the lines when it's no longer necessary.

Luckily, the actresses' chemistry goes a long way.  Binoche and Stewart aren't a pair you'd expect to see onscreen together, but there's some magic in the dynamics of their character's relationship.  As we settle in with the film, and trace their journey to their Sils Maria retreat, the film is an easy breeze, the regular fades to black shaping the narrative into a series of calming breaths.  But once we're trapped in numerous debates about the play, we're in for a long slog.

Still, it's wonderful to see Binoche given such a substantial role to dig into, and she does so with gusto.  And the film has lots to say.  Fame means something different at different points in a star's trajectory: Youtube videos and acidic interviews are the order of the day for Moretz's wild child actress, while Maria settles into the twilight of her career.  The casting is particularly sharp in the case of Stewart, who throws away a line about werewolves and suggests that even actresses in mindless blockbusters can be great actresses; she proves that to be true here, just as she did in Breaking Dawn Part 2 (yes, really).  For the performances, Clouds of Sils Maria is worth the time, but I can't help but wish the script served the cast more concisely.