Clouds of Sils Maria (2015)

Film: Clouds of Sils Maria (2014/15)
Stars: Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Chloe Grace Moretz
Director: Olivier Assayas
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Big ideas, difficult messages, and intelligence are frequently in short supply at the movies.  When a prestige film comes out, it occasionally attempts maybe one of these goals.  This is because they are difficult to carry-out, and oftentimes polarize audiences.  The modern example of this is every time that Terrence Malick comes out with a film: The Tree of Life and To the Wonder got eviscerated by some critics while hosanna'd by others.  If a film does try to say something larger, it usually has to do it under a conventional guise, such as the movie Wild, which explored complicated looks at personal evolution and the fractures of time moving forward, but did it in the same arena as a survival film starring a major movie star.  While Clouds of Sils Maria does have the benefit of three big-name actresses and an initially familiar trope (famous actresses are always showing up as famous actresses in movies), the film ventures forward in different directions for a complicated, occasionally bitter, but in the end glorious movie-watching experience.  The film, which earned raves out of Cannes, is a mesmerizing character study surrounded by a brilliantly-layered script that will leave you wondering and pondering hours and days after the theater thinking about what you experienced.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film starts out with Maria Enders (Binoche) on a train to accept an award for a reclusive playwright (much in the same vein as Roman Polanski or Malick himself), accompanied by her assistant Valentine (Stewart).  On the way, she realizes that the playwright has passed away, completely changing the mood of the ceremony, and that a former lover of hers whom she hasn't spoken to in years and whom she has a curt and fraught relationship with will be showing up at the same ceremony.  Preceding the ceremony Maria is asked by a director to star in a play she did as a young woman, but instead of playing the ingenue who seduces an aging businesswoman, she will play the aging businesswoman.  She initially declines, but in a cut-away (the film is very direct about the changing of scenes, frequently using long black-screen transitions to shift over periods of time), we realize that working with the acclaimed director and the press involved is too much to resist, and she has entered rehearsals.

These opening scenes are breathtaking not just because of the way that we are peering into the life of a famous actress, but in the way that the film seems rounded in their approach to Maria, and really to all involved.  Whereas most movies play with extremes, trying to make someone be X, this film realizes that a person, even a major movie star, is sometimes X and sometimes Y, and we see the edges of Maria, and very slowly, Valentine.  Binoche makes her elegant and insanely magnetizing-she's used to the glare of cameras after decades in the spotlight, and is both an artist and someone who knows that she likes the spotlight.  I loved the way she faked liking a fellow actor or could turn on and off her sexuality at a moment's notice or the way that she seemed to have such an easy glamour, someone who knows exactly how to get a perfect photograph or angle or interview answer thrown out.  She's practiced, and not easily flapped.  So frequently in films about accomplished people we see someone who is going to fall apart who never really seemed to have the determination to get to success in the first place (this was my principle issue with La Vie en Rose, for example).  This isn't the case with Maria-she's grounded and ferocious enough to know how to be a success and to be famous, and smart enough to acknowledge that sometimes one can be more important than the other.

The film's next chapter takes place in the Alps of Switzerland, where Maria is practicing with Valentine for the role.  The film follows the two of them as they randomly start to train Maria, snippets of their own characters being forced into the conversations, like a play within a play, until we can no longer tell which of these two women is playing a part anymore.  This is one of the bolder elements in the movie-this has been used recently in a film with Binoche, in fact, called Certified Copy (also superb), so there was risk of been-there-done-that, but while there it feels like a trick for a while until the resolution, here that resolution becomes almost invisible, and the trick wears into something more pleasantly muddled.  The movie follows these two people as they slowly start to learn about each other and mimic the characters.  Maria keeps grossing on about the insufferable nature of Helena, the older woman who falls in love with a younger woman in the play she's doing, insisting she is still the younger Sigrid while we see that she has transitioned away, oblivious to the affection she has for her young assistant (whether sexual or not, it's hard to say, but there's clearly an amour sitting there).  The movie could so easily transition into a vanity speech here, with Binoche becoming Norma Desmond, but it isn't youth as an abstract that Maria is clinging to-it's relevance.  She still wants to be the newness, the adored, the girl with the valued opinions.  After what appears to be a rough night, where Valentine may have been sexually assaulted (the film strongly hints at this), we see her start to defy Maria and eventually call her out for her dismissive treatment toward her.  Maria tries to convince her to stay, but she disappears in the climactic title scene, forever out of the picture.

Here is the moment where the film takes its boldest leap by not ending the movie.  In the original play, this is how it ends, with Sigrid leaving and Helena left to go for a walk, presumably to die.  However, as we see foreshadowed earlier in the film (when we learn that there will be new pages coming for the play), we get more to the story.  Here we see Maria, still a star but perhaps less brightened and certainly overshadowed, playing opposite of the less adoring Jo-Ann (Moretz), her young costar.  The movie ends with ambiguity here-has Maria seen her career disappear, or what happens when you are a star, but not the brightest?  She continues to demand respect, but the play becomes Jo-Ann's story and the final moments open with Maria ready to take on Helena, sitting in a chair onstage as the performance is about to begin.  We're left wondering if she will see a new facet in her life after Valentine or whether or not she, like Helena, will fade into the background.

The film's script, as you might be able to tell, is thick and meaty, frequently relying on big ideas and artistic risks, but they nearly all pay off.  It helps that the movie has wonderful performances coming from the leads.  Critics have paid heed to Kristen Stewart's work, so natural and free of scenery-chewing or indulging, but just knowing work that always feels authentic.  Some have called this a breakthrough, but it's really more of a peak; with plum work in On the Road and Still Alice recently, she's proven to be far more than Bella Swan.  Binoche has earned her plaudits as well (though considering she has an Oscar and is considered one of the truly great working actors, far less surprise), and they are well-deserved.  She plays her Maria as a real person, someone who exists in a different world but not as a different species, which is refreshing for a film about a famed individual.  Moretz isn't quite in the same league as these two, but that's only grading on a curve, as I loved the way that she too found a real soul in the back of what could have been a caricature.  The richest thing about all three is that they all feel authentic-there's a realism to this film that is so refreshing.  We don't see big scenes or big moments like we do in other films, but instead smart, confident people-never heroes or villains, but people-who are determined to succeed and generally do.  It's wonderful to see that instead of success or failure, it's just degrees of each.

It's also worth noting that all three women play weird facsimiles of not only the characters in the play, but of themselves in real life.  It adds something to see Binoche playing a woman who has had great success in the art house (where she got her start at a young age, much like Binoche) but who occasionally goes into Hollywood (Godzilla, anyone?).  Chloe Grace Moretz does her best Lindsay Lohan in the beginning, but in many ways she's more Kristen Stewart-someone putting on a performance to pay the bills and gain opportunities, but who is aware enough to respect a celebrity that she may not even enjoy.  It's fascinating to see the way that they mirror themselves and other actors (Sigourney Weaver, Nicole Kidman, and Jennifer Lawrence are all clear influences) in a film that's essentially about mirroring what's onscreen.

All-in-all, this is a marvelous movie and way better than I anticipated even with high expectations headed into it.  Huge kudos go out to writer/director Assayas and the three women who occupy his script.  For those who have seen it, what were your thoughts?  Do you agree that this is mesmerizing, almost as if we are in a Bergman movie?  Share your thoughts in the comments!