Since her rapid ascent to fame as The Twilight Saga's leading lady, Kristen Stewart has had something of a rough time when it comes to her professional and public life. It's bad enough having the latter combed over in fine detail, but when your talent is called into question, that must sting all the more.
But here's the thing about Kristen Stewart. She isn't a bad actress in the slightest. In fact, right now she's on the kind of under-the-radar hot streak that suggests she's destined for real career longevity. Twilight, now receding into the cultural distance, was never the finest example of a franchise that fostered great acting work, and Stewart suffered as audiences naturally connected her with sullen on-screen alter-ego Bella Swan.
Over the last 18 months Stewart's big screen work has seen her take on a trio of diverse roles that have smartly distanced her from anything vampire-related.
But here's the thing about Kristen Stewart. She isn't a bad actress in the slightest. In fact, right now she's on the kind of under-the-radar hot streak that suggests she's destined for real career longevity. Twilight, now receding into the cultural distance, was never the finest example of a franchise that fostered great acting work, and Stewart suffered as audiences naturally connected her with sullen on-screen alter-ego Bella Swan.
Over the last 18 months Stewart's big screen work has seen her take on a trio of diverse roles that have smartly distanced her from anything vampire-related.
- 5/10/2015
- Digital Spy
The “metacinema” is a small but ever-present category of films that span all genres, typically are of a smaller, art house or independent scale of production and typically are also hit or miss. Metacinema, for the sake of this review, is loosely defined as a film presented as a story about its own production. These films, albeit possible, are usually not documentary, but are presented in a way that can seem based in non-fiction. For this reason, some viewers find them confusing or distracting. Some of these films are rather pretentious, while others are quite groundbreaking.
Clouds Of Sils Maria falls somewhere safely between pretentious and groundbreaking on the scale of successful metacinema filmmaking. Truth be told, this is not actually a true example of metacinema, as its not a film about its own production. However, it is a film about an actress preparing for a major role in a...
Clouds Of Sils Maria falls somewhere safely between pretentious and groundbreaking on the scale of successful metacinema filmmaking. Truth be told, this is not actually a true example of metacinema, as its not a film about its own production. However, it is a film about an actress preparing for a major role in a...
- 4/30/2015
- by Travis Keune
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
There is a scene around two thirds into Clouds of Sils Maria, the latest film from French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, where forty-something actor Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) and her twenty-something personal assistant Valentine (Kristen Stewart) go to see a goofy sci-fi epic. That film is set on a spaceship and features characters with neon hairdos and colorful costumes shouting inane dialogue. Valentine and Maria gaze at the screen, the former wearing a grin of goofy enjoyment, the latter bored, even taking off her 3D glasses to see if they are worth wearing. Discussing the junky blockbuster afterward, Maria snorts at the headache-inducing flick. Valentine responds, saying that even if the movie is full of simplistic sci-fi pop psychology, it is no deeper than a more serious film.
Of all the meta comments to spill out of the thematically overbearing Cannes favorite, that may be its most telling. Clouds of Sils Maria...
Of all the meta comments to spill out of the thematically overbearing Cannes favorite, that may be its most telling. Clouds of Sils Maria...
- 4/9/2015
- by Jordan Adler
- We Got This Covered
It has been nearly a year since Clouds of Sils Maria premiered at Cannes, but the film is only just now coming to theaters in the U.S. Directed by Olivier Assayas, it tells the story of cyclical obsession and potential betrayal between an older actress, her personal assistant, and a young ingenue.
The film features Juliette Binoche as Maria Enders, whose personal assistant (Kristen Stewart) convinces her to take on the role of an older woman who becomes obsessed with a much younger woman, eventually leading to violence and suicide. But things are even more complicated: Maria owes her entire career to having appeared in the same play when she was eighteen, playing the younger woman. Taking the role against her better instincts, she begins to rehearse opposite Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloe Grace Moretz). Predictably, Maria is swept up in a new cycle of personality exchange and increasing obsession as...
The film features Juliette Binoche as Maria Enders, whose personal assistant (Kristen Stewart) convinces her to take on the role of an older woman who becomes obsessed with a much younger woman, eventually leading to violence and suicide. But things are even more complicated: Maria owes her entire career to having appeared in the same play when she was eighteen, playing the younger woman. Taking the role against her better instincts, she begins to rehearse opposite Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloe Grace Moretz). Predictably, Maria is swept up in a new cycle of personality exchange and increasing obsession as...
- 1/16/2015
- by Lauren Humphries-Brooks
- We Got This Covered
Life imitates art in all sorts of beguiling ways in Clouds of Sils Maria, Olivier Assayas’s intricate character drama about fame, art, and mortality. With fluid direction that nonetheless proves sneakily sharp in its evocative framing and transitional fades, Assayas’s latest tracks actress Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) into rehearsals of a new production of the play Maloja Snake – about a boss being overtaken by her assistant (and lesbian lover) – that first made her a star twenty years earlier. Now asked to inhabit the older, suicidal role opposite young, tabloid-beloved up-and-comer Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloë Grace Moretz), Maria struggles to come to terms with her new status, a discomfort she routinely articulates to her own personal ass...
- 10/10/2014
- Village Voice
Clouds of Sils Maria
Written and directed by Olivier Assayas
Switzerland/Germany/France, 2014
“Everything is hitting me at once,” announces Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche), just minutes into director Olivier Assayas’ English-language film Clouds of Sils Maria. It’s a subtle line that quickly introduces us to the frazzled female headspace that Assayas and Binoche have jointly crafted in this Bergman-esque melodrama. Representing a minor change of pace for Assayas, whose prior film Something in the Air (2012) found the director working back in his comfort zone with a youthful period drama, Sils Maria plays like a disappointing relative to the director’s brilliant Irma Vep (1996). Where Irma Vep boasted radical textures, doubling as a crackling satire of French cinema culture and a pulsating experiment riding high on the fumes of its own coolness, Sils Maria is at times wispy and insightful, but its familiar thematics are more taxing than absorbing. Expectations usually run high with Assayas,...
Written and directed by Olivier Assayas
Switzerland/Germany/France, 2014
“Everything is hitting me at once,” announces Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche), just minutes into director Olivier Assayas’ English-language film Clouds of Sils Maria. It’s a subtle line that quickly introduces us to the frazzled female headspace that Assayas and Binoche have jointly crafted in this Bergman-esque melodrama. Representing a minor change of pace for Assayas, whose prior film Something in the Air (2012) found the director working back in his comfort zone with a youthful period drama, Sils Maria plays like a disappointing relative to the director’s brilliant Irma Vep (1996). Where Irma Vep boasted radical textures, doubling as a crackling satire of French cinema culture and a pulsating experiment riding high on the fumes of its own coolness, Sils Maria is at times wispy and insightful, but its familiar thematics are more taxing than absorbing. Expectations usually run high with Assayas,...
- 9/6/2014
- by Ty Landis
- SoundOnSight
Hollywood is a fickle business, and it’s no secret that it’s at its most treacherous when you’re attempting to navigate its murky waters as an aging actress, especially one who used to be a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young starlet. Roles that were once piling at your feet faster than you could say “is it really necessary for my character to wear this crop top?” are — not suddenly, but gradually enough to not notice their slide — drifting away and being handed to the next new cute thing. Even if you’re still respected and revered and praised, you’re not going to be called an ingénue anytime soon. The tides have changed. With the new international trailer for Clouds of Sils Maria, Juliette Binoche is figuring this out all too well for herself when Chloe Moretz storms into her life. Binoche is Maria Enders, an actress who found great fame as a young woman playing...
- 7/7/2014
- by Samantha Wilson
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
One of the last films to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival was French director Olivier Assayas’ latest work, Clouds of Sils Maria. Re-teaming with Juliette Binoche and bringing aboard a couple of Hollywood actresses, Kristen Stewart (as Binoche’s assistant Valentine) and Chloe Grace Moretz (as young actress Jo-Ann Ellis), the story is told through Maria’s perspective, reflecting on shifting values and art […]...
- 5/26/2014
- by Asta Sabaliauskaite
- The Film Stage
A new trailer for Clouds of Sils Maria has debuted at Cannes.
The Olivier Assayas drama, which follows an actress confronting her changing industry status while consumed by her past choices, stars Juliette Binoche, Chloë Moretz and Kristen Stewart.
Binoche plays the lead, Maria Enders, with Stewart replacing original casting Mia Wasikowska as Binoche's assistant Valentine.
Moretz stars as Jo-Ann Ellis, a young starlet taking on Enders' breakout role in a remake of film Maloja Snake.
Clouds of Sils Maria is scheduled to open on December 1 in the USA, with a UK date not yet confirmed.
Apocalyptic horror-thriller White Dog - about stray dogs on a rampage - was named as the Un Certain Regard winner at Cannes today.
The Olivier Assayas drama, which follows an actress confronting her changing industry status while consumed by her past choices, stars Juliette Binoche, Chloë Moretz and Kristen Stewart.
Binoche plays the lead, Maria Enders, with Stewart replacing original casting Mia Wasikowska as Binoche's assistant Valentine.
Moretz stars as Jo-Ann Ellis, a young starlet taking on Enders' breakout role in a remake of film Maloja Snake.
Clouds of Sils Maria is scheduled to open on December 1 in the USA, with a UK date not yet confirmed.
Apocalyptic horror-thriller White Dog - about stray dogs on a rampage - was named as the Un Certain Regard winner at Cannes today.
- 5/23/2014
- Digital Spy
Cannes - In a festival that has been unusually generous to actresses -- permitted to carry any number of high-profile entries, from Tommy Lee Jones' "The Homesman" to the Dardennes' "Two Days, One Night" to Xavier Dolan's "Mommy" -- it seems fitting that the final Competition film screened to press should be an explicit examination of their craft. The graceful ghosts of "All About Eve" and Cassavetes' "Opening Night" haunt Olivier Assayas' arch-but-airy "Clouds of Sils Maria" -- a melancholic comedy seemingly only fine degrees of fictional separation from taking the title "Being Juliette Binoche." We can only speculate how directly the character of Maria Enders, a theater-reared Euro screen icon who has since moved into Us studio fare, is based on the French Oscar winner. Their career trajectories are certainly similar enough, though the fact that Binoche is sufficiently self-aware to take this playful role in...
- 5/23/2014
- by Guy Lodge
- Hitfix
In a new trailer from Cannes, Juliette Binoche plays Maria Enders, an actress whose entire life is changed by a single role — the role that once made her famous, which is now being played by Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloe Grace Moretz) in a new production. Also in the mix is Enders’ personal assistant, Val (Kristen Stewart), with whom she shares a very intimate bond.
Directed by Olivier Assayas, Clouds of Sils Maria is about three women, one play, and lots of complicated relationships.
Watch the full trailer below:...
Directed by Olivier Assayas, Clouds of Sils Maria is about three women, one play, and lots of complicated relationships.
Watch the full trailer below:...
- 5/23/2014
- by Samantha Highfill
- EW - Inside Movies
Clouds of Sils Maria
Written and directed by Olivier Assayas
France/ Switzerland/Germany, 2014
Val (Kristen Stewart) attempts to keep her balance on an Alps-bound train as she juggles iPhone, Blackberry, and coffee. She’s opening and closing business deals as well as taking care of divorce details for Maria (Juliette Binoche), who waits behind her star-worthy sunglasses for any sort of good news. They’re friendly toward each other in this relationship of international star and personal assistant, but their attitudes are soon to become each being transfixed on the other, forming into a singular dramatic entity. Olivier Assayas, especially with his previous Irma Vep, has had a keen awareness for this entity and how the actions on-set can serve as a sort of chamber drama in itself. With Clouds of Sils Maria, his vision behind this project becomes realized in the channel of Bergman by way of TMZ, a...
Written and directed by Olivier Assayas
France/ Switzerland/Germany, 2014
Val (Kristen Stewart) attempts to keep her balance on an Alps-bound train as she juggles iPhone, Blackberry, and coffee. She’s opening and closing business deals as well as taking care of divorce details for Maria (Juliette Binoche), who waits behind her star-worthy sunglasses for any sort of good news. They’re friendly toward each other in this relationship of international star and personal assistant, but their attitudes are soon to become each being transfixed on the other, forming into a singular dramatic entity. Olivier Assayas, especially with his previous Irma Vep, has had a keen awareness for this entity and how the actions on-set can serve as a sort of chamber drama in itself. With Clouds of Sils Maria, his vision behind this project becomes realized in the channel of Bergman by way of TMZ, a...
- 5/23/2014
- by Zach Lewis
- SoundOnSight
Kristen Stewart Assists an Insecure Juliette Binoche in ‘Clouds of Sils Maria’ Debut Trailer (Video)
Juliette Binoche is an aging actress threatened by Chloe Grace Moretz's youthful confidence in the first trailer for Olivier Assayas’ upcoming film “Clouds of Sils Maria.” Binoche plays Maria Enders, an accomplished and successful actress with a devoted personal assistant, Valentine (Kristen Stewart). When Enders accepts a role in the play that made her famous, this time in the role of the “older woman,” she clashes — personally and professionally — with the play's new young star, Jo-Ann Ellis (Moretz). Enders is forced to confront her own insecurities and sense of aging as she tries to rein in her seething jealousy.
- 5/22/2014
- by Matthew Bramlett
- The Wrap
Summer Hours writer/director Olivier Assayas is in competition at the Cannes Film Festival this year with Clouds Of Silas Maria, boasting the talents of Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart and Chloe Grace Moretz. The first trailer for the drama is now online. Clouds Of Silas Maria finds Binoche as critically acclaimed actress Maria Enders, who launched her career two decades ago with a searing role in the play Maloja Snake. Back then, she played Sigrid, an ambitious young woman who slowly drove her older friend Helena to suicide. Now, more than 20 years layer, she’s in Switzerland’s Sils Maria to celebrate the man who helped launch her career and is approached about playing the Helena role in a new production. Caught at a tumultuous part of her life, Maria begins to wonder about her own life, and her close relationship with personal assistant Valentine (Stewart). Her concern is not...
- 5/22/2014
- EmpireOnline
The 2014 Cannes Film Festival may be drawing to a close, but it’s still not over for director Oliver Assayas (Something In The Air, Summer Hours). The French filmmaker’s latest drama, Clouds Of Sils Maria is scheduled to screen in competition, begging the question: will it snag the festival’s prized award, the Palme d’Or? Judging by the sneak peeks offered so far with posters, images, clips and today the first full-length trailer, we’d say it’s one to watch.
With Juliette Binoche having put in a brief-but-memorable performance in box office behemoth, Godzilla, this past weekend, it’s good to see her sinking her teeth into a meatier role. As a 40+ actress, she’s asked to take a role in a reboot of the very play which catapulted her to stardom decades before. Relocating to the Alps for rehearsals with her assistant, Valentine (Kristen Stewart), she...
With Juliette Binoche having put in a brief-but-memorable performance in box office behemoth, Godzilla, this past weekend, it’s good to see her sinking her teeth into a meatier role. As a 40+ actress, she’s asked to take a role in a reboot of the very play which catapulted her to stardom decades before. Relocating to the Alps for rehearsals with her assistant, Valentine (Kristen Stewart), she...
- 5/22/2014
- by Gem Seddon
- We Got This Covered
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