Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Mace While maintaining a sleek art-house-esque aesthetic and narrative, Olivier Assayas' Clouds of Sils Maria explores complicated human emotions, as well as sociological change, in a rather simplistic way. The result is a gorgeously organic and thought- provoking film that manages to thoroughly entertain, as well as inform.Juliette Binoche is a powerhouse of talent as usual, but who certainly surprises is the often understated Kristen Stewart, who, proved here, can work brilliantly with well- crafted material placed before her. The chemistry between Binoche and Stewart is simply electric, not only propelling the narrative forward, but making any potentially dull scene deliciously biting with their whip-cracking banter. It's not often that two actors so naturally play off of each other this effectively, to a point of wishing that their shared portions of the film were longer. Despite the crackling script and tantalizing character drama, there is a 20 minute epilogue that grinds the film's hefty momentum to a halt. While it is most definitely a necessary sequence for the story, it's lack of real substance is only amplified by the time it lasts on-screen. A middle-credits sequence would've left ample space for the story of the epilogue, but for whatever reason, Assayas stretched the finale of this intriguing story until it practically began to tear under the brilliance of the rest of the film.While arguably not quite as realized as Assayas' second effort with Stewart, Personal Shopper (2016), Clouds of Sils Maria is an impressively audacious study of mainstream film and celebrity status that is made rich and layered by the convicting chemistry between the film's leads. It's all so undeniably impressive, to a point where the director's shortcomings become all the more apparent, and in turn, more frustrating.

lazlo_buddy If this is "Birdman" for female actors, then we aren't paying attention. We're lazy, lazy people with no real respect for women. In "Birdman," the main character gets to talk about the pain of human life -- universal feelings amongst all of us. He gets to rail at a snobby critic for that critic not having ever created anything and been vulnerable to criticism. The conversations are about art, creating, acting, being judged, growing up, becoming irrelevant, finding relevance, relationships with wives and daughters and antagonizing co-workers, the list goes on. With "Birdman," the main character gets to have a second voice that is his -- another version of him -- which is so much more artfully and intelligently done. "Birdman" was a brilliant film. "Sils," by comparison, is limp and slow, not at all nuanced, and super lazy as a thought exercise. The Hollywood voice-over during the trailer would sound something like: "This one's old. This one's young. WHO WINS?" And to be clear, that's not what _I_ think of Juliette Binoche and KStew. That's how dumb and simplistic this move is. The currency of youth is the only value a woman offers, let's talk? Bah! That's a privileged, small man's view, and an old man's view from a culture that values women mostly as sex objects and mother/mystery-goddess blah blah blah. What a pointless way to see half of the population. Beyond the supposition that these two movies don't compare, this move was strongly peppered with problems, moments that make you roll your eyes, and a lack of clarity. Over and over again, I kept thinking, "Where did this conversation begin?" "Why is Maria laughing so hard and so fakely? Is that bad acting, or is it intentional to show her discomfort?" "Why is Val suddenly so angry? Did something happen?" Look, if Val had been her personal assistant -- and clearly an adept and experienced one -- for so long, she would _know_ who this woman was. Val would've been familiar with Maria. Their relationship wouldn't have been so burdened by a time alone. So, her sudden disgust with Maria made no sense. Any long term, mutually beneficial relationship involves understanding and accepting the other person's foibles. So, for Val to so quickly become irked at Maria to the point of abandoning her in the Alps without a map -- whaaaht? Where did that come from? They disagree, so Val tries to make Maria's life end like Helena's did in the play? Or, no wait. Maybe not, b/c now Maria is alive and being offered a part in a futuristic movie, b/c she's a "timeless" creature. Oh. okay. Why did Wilhelm's wife burn his scripts but save a couple pages? Why the intro of some past lover Maria hates, but she gives him her room number -- even though this actress should have more self-respect than that -- and then we never see him again? Why does Val go along with Maria if she finds Maria's opinions and condescension so annoying? What happened between Val and Ber(nt?)? Why focus on the new pages in the play if we're not going to see how they change the ending of the play? Oh, because the ending of the movie changed? Ugh. Really? The relationship stressors were forced and not shown. The story was scattered and created a totally forced sense of loneliness only when it needed to. The characters outside of Val and Maria were one-note. (And frankly, the advertisements for Switzerland were not very well masked to be enjoyable. Lord, the number of long scenes rolling over the mountains. It's not as pretty as it is in real life. Cut that out!)I feel sorry for Juliette Binoche and KStew. They were good. KStew is growing, and I hope she continues to hone her art. Juliette Binoche was kind of amazing running her lines as Helena. My heart flew into my chest when she cried out and cleared the kitchen table's contents onto the floor. I felt something in that one moment, where the rest of the movie made me feel nothing but a mild sense of resentment at a male dominated hierarchy.

anyes75 Did the director of this movie have a plan when he built this pretentious and "décousue" story? Like most French movies that pretend to be artistic this one is terribly boring and one wonders why the writer/ director has Miss Binoche burst into laughing other than using Miss Binoche's famous laugh. Is this movie a story about ageing actresses or a biography of Juliette Binoche? We get it, actresses have personal assistans and photographers and pretend to live a glamorous life. The only thing interesting in this pitiful movie was the comparison of the ageing actress with the clouds that predict bad weather in the Alps chain. The actress is so into her role that she becomes her character, at the beginning Binoche looks attractive with beautiful hair and when she is rehearsing for her role she has short hair and a duller complexion and looks older. Although I did not enjoy the movie I watched it to the end, sometimes fastforwarding to make it less painful and to see if there was another point to the movie...but no...

runamokprods Powered by two towering performances by Juliette Bincoche and Kristen Stewart, Assayas tells the story of a complex and fragile relationship between an 'older' (as in late 40s) actress and movie star. and her young assistant. But instead of getting an art house variation on "All About Eve" (and there are echoes of that classic) we get something much richer, more subtle and enigmatic about aging, art, acting, identity, youth and the complexity of relationships between women, and between employer and employee. (It's also all spectacularly well photographed).Maria (Binoche) is a respected and admired film star headed to a festival to honor the writer- director who launched her career years earlier, --casting her in a piece examining the relationship between an aggressive young woman and an older female boss who falls for her. But the mentor dies before the festival can start, and the shaken Maria is talked into returning to the seminal project of her career, but now in a London stage production where she will play the older woman, not the younger. This triggers all sorts of complex fears and emotions, so Maria retreats to the incredibly beautiful mountain home of her now dead mentor, bringing her young assistant Valentine (Stewart) with her to help her study and analyze the role. In the process the two women grow closer, and share much about themselves and their world views, each challenging, supporting and at times frightening or enraging the other.The film boldly embraces the meta nature of the tale – the relationship in the film in many ways – but far from all – mirroring the key relationship in the play. While rooted in naturalism, there is a spooky sense of ambiguity always creeping around the edges of the film, the sense that anything could happen, and in the end, nothing is tied together with a neat bow. Thankfully! There are still questions and mysteries to be pondered.The film did have a few miss-steps for me, some late turns that felt more forced than what preceded it, but but those 'problems' bothered me less on a second viewing. That's happened to me before with Assayas, as with Bergman and other film makers who deal more with the mystery of human behavior than the mechanics of plot. And the tremendously dense work between Bincoche and Stewart is wonderful. There is a sense of freedom in the performances, a terrific immediacy as the two bounce off each other like ping-pong balls, giving a sense that much of what we're seeing is semi-improvised (though I doubt that was actually the case). Seeing that loose, playful, alive style in a film that on a larger level is much more formal in it's structure and ideas creates a wonderful friction that also gives the film a powerful sense of life. And life - and the way we change as we move through is - is ultimately what the film is all about.