Clouds of Sils Maria

Actress Maria Enders a 40-ish movie star is having something of a middle-aged crisis with her marriage dissolving and her career at a crossroads.  She has been persuaded to travel to Switzerland to accept an Award on behalf of her close friend the playwright Wilhelm Melchior who had given her the breakthrough role that started her career decades ago.  En route she gets a message that he has suddenly died, and soon after learns that to mark his passing there will be a theatrical staging of his celebrated movie ‘Maloja Snake’ that had made Maria a star. This time however they do not want her to recreate her original role of the young woman but play the part of a burned out older businesswoman who is manipulated by a young female assistant in a daring lesbian dynamic.

It’s not something that Maria is keen to undertake as that would mean acknowledging that she is too old to play the part she really identifies with, but also there is bad omen that still remains about the role of the bitter older woman as the original actress had died in a tragic accident soon after the movie was released.

Whenever it suits her, Maria tends to shield herself from the outside world behind Val who acts as her personal assistant, confidante, minder, unofficial therapist and her rehearsal partner.  It is Val who persuades her reluctant boss to accept the stage role and even drags her to a nearby cinema to show Maria a rather appalling movie starring the hot young actress who will be playing the part in the play that Maria still covets. The fact that the ingenue has a infamous Lindsay Lohan type reputation in the media just serves to remind Maria of her own wild times which she had reluctantly left in her past.

Marie’s almost total dependency on Val almost burns her young assistant out and just when there is a hint of some physicality between the two, Val drives off into the night for a date with a boyfriend that she had strangely failed to mention any time prior. Then soon after this she completely disappears somewhat mysteriously when the mists of the clouds high up in the mountains engulf both women, and she is never seen again.

Juliette Binoche brings this rather disturbing plot completely alive with an outstanding and impeccable performance as Maria.  It is on one level a case of art mirroring life, as Ms Binoche got her first big break almost 30 years ago in ‘Rendez-vous’ written by Oliver Assayas who has now directed her in ‘Sils Maria’.  A very impressive Kristen Stewart played Val with such veracity that it earned her a Best Actress César: an extremely rare honor for a non French actor, and Chloë Grace Moretz played Maria’s bete noir.