"Clouds of Sils Maria" Cannes Film Festival 2014 - Reviews

Some of the amazing reviews and comments about Kristen's performance in 'Clouds of Sils Maria' from the Cannes Film Festival.

Click on each source for a complete review of 'Clouds of Sils Maria'.

Thompson on Hollywood

Of the three, it's Stewart who registers most strongly, portraying a bright, confident young woman whose insecurities can't help flare up in a relationship in which she must, by default, adopt the inferior role. She and Binoche share several compelling on-screen moments, one of the best being a comical encounter where Val tries to explain the human value of superhero films as Maria collapses in fits of laughter. It's an ironic moment, too, given that Enders herself is known for playing a "mutant" in an "X-Men" style franchise. Later, Val gently skewers her highbrow boss' love of celebrity gossip: "It's not gossip, it's information," Maria retorts.

Film Divider

Binoche has long been known to be remarkable actress and so it’s no surprise to see her in fine form, but Kristen Stewart is something of a revelation. Her previous work has tended towards the one-note, but here she delivers subtlety and range, going toe to toe with Binoche in their every scene. It’s no mean feat.

Le Monde

"Kristen Stewart manages an absolutely outstanding performance. I've rarely seen something like this."
(Translation)

Variety

Stewart is the one who actually embodies what Binoche's character most fears, countering the older actress' more studied technique with the same spontaneous, agitated energy that makes her the most compellingly watchable American actress of her generation. Heightening the effect still further, Assayas uses the inescapable "baggage" of Stewart's offscreen persona -- from broken-marriage tabloid drama to a tossed-off eye-roll over the ridiculous rise in werewolf projects post-"Twilight" -- to slyly alter the movie's pH.

ICS Film

It is exactly this idea that makes the casting of this film, and Stewart in particular, so brilliant, as she is the reflection for most of the vacuity of Moretz' character. All the better that Stewart turns out to be able to go toe to toe with her formidable opponent in the boxing match between their characters...

HitFix

It's the artist-assistant relationship, played with good humor and mutual appreciation by Binoche and Stewart, that finally gives depth and definition to this cool breeze of a film: with Valentine seemingly the last remaining sounding board for the tetchy diva, Enders sees her only as an enabler, not as an individual; Valentine, on the other hand, stifles her own ego by attending so dutifully to another.

Times of Isreal

...but the real breakout in this film is (and you better sit down for this) Kristen Stewart. The oft-mocked Bella Swan of the insufferable “Twilight” films is remarkable as the tough, crafty and perceptive personal assistant that keeps the engine of the film moving.

The Australian

The film is a fascinating insight into the life of actors in Europe, as opposed to Cronenberg’s mordant Hollywood vision, and there’s an eye-catching performance from another young Hollywood star, Kristen Stewart, who plays Binoche’s PA.

The Telegraph

Binoche plays the role with elegance and melancholic wit – her character slips between fiction and fact in a way that recalls her role in Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy, although Assayas’s film feels more rigidly constructed; not that that’s necessarily a criticism. But it’s Stewart who really shines here. Valentine is probably her best role to date: she’s sharp and subtle, knowable and then suddenly distant, and a late, surprising twist is handled with a brilliant lightness of touch.

Vanity Fair

It may be Chloe Grace Moretz's character, the outwardly bratty tabloid sensation Jo-Ann Ellis, who flips a middle finger at the camera, but it's the real Kristen Stewart, franchise-famous celebrity, who flips a middle finger at the critics in Clouds of Sils Maria. Olivier Assayas' thoughtful and intelligent meditation on acting, fame, and age doesn't just offer Ms. Stewart the best role of her life; it grants her a moment at center stage to lay out, in eloquent yet non-didactic terms, a defense of actors in the kinds of movies that sound a heck of a lot like Twilight.

While the meta moment fits snugly in the flow of this movie (and no doubt would work well with another talented actress delivering the lines) it's impossible not to imagine this as a K-Stew cri de coeur, a suggestion that those who have been slamming the Twilight films maybe should water down their haterade. Stewart gives a striking performance in Clouds. Her character Val, a personal assistant and rock of Gibraltar to Juliette Binoche's film and stage star Maria, is self-assured, crafty, honest, perceptive and even a little bit warm. It's a 180 from the dead-behind-the-eyes Bella Swan, yet there's the same flat delivery and crossed-arm presence. Here it radiates confidence, not Edward vs. Jacob indecision. Most of the film is just Stewart and Binoche in conversation, and Stewart more than holds her own. This film will fundamentally change your perception of this oft-mocked individual.

The Film Stage

Stewart has been a strange property during her time in Hollywood, her talents as an actress mostly untested (or, better put, ignored) in the Twilight franchise, despite showing signs of promise in films like Adventureland and The Runaways. Val is a complex role in which the actress never loses her real-life persona, instead embracing it to develop a dynamic with Binoche’s more classically moved performance. The two begin on a train to Zurich to honor Maria’s great collaborator, a German playwright who wrote the role that made her famous, when they learn the man has died. More than that, a young director hopes to re-stage the play with Maria once more, not in the lusting and forceful youth role, but as the suicidal, weak-willed, older woman.

Variety

Moretz is fine, scoring laughs in a series of paparazzi-documented public outbursts, but not nearly as exciting in the fake “X-Men”-style movie-within-the-movie as Val believes. Ultimately, Stewart is the one who actually embodies what Binoche’s character most fears, countering the older actress’ more studied technique with the same spontaneous, agitated energy that makes her the most compellingly watchable American actress of her generation. Heightening the effect still further, Assayas uses the inescapable “baggage” of Stewart’s offscreen persona — from broken-marriage tabloid drama to a tossed-off eye-roll over the ridiculous rise in werewolf projects post-“Twilight” — to slyly alter the movie’s pH.

Total Film

In face of a strong competition line up, it seems unlikely that Clouds Of Sils Maria will be among the prizes. But it’s an elegant, intelligent drama, enlivened by strong performances by Binoche, Moretz and especially Stewart, for whom this will surely usher in a new dawn.

The Guardian

Naturally Maria is given an upstart young rival in the form of Jo-Ann (Chloe Grace Moretz), a hellraising Hollywood starlet, fresh out of rehab. Yet Assayas is really more interested in the dynamic between Maria and Val (Kristen Stewart), the actor's personal assistant, who works her iPhone with one hand and her BlackBerry with the other. The relationship here is quite beautifully drawn, with Stewart again demonstrating what a terrific performer she can be away from the shadow of Twilight. She's sharp and limber; she's a match for Binoche. Sitting down for dinner, in one telling scene, Val dismisses her boss as a snob and claims that blockbuster fantasies can be just as valid, in their way, as social-realist dramas set in factories or on farms. Maria arches a delicate eyebrow. Yet again, she's unconvinced.


The Hollywood Reporter

The majority of the film’s two hours is devoted to scenes involving Binoche and Stewart, sometimes with others but mostly alone, so for anyone who enjoys watching these two excellent actresses knocking it back and forth as their characters cope with the myriad issues surrounding a performing career, there is much to behold. This is definitely an insider’s view, looking at things not in a salacious way but as a consideration of the way such lives are led and how past associations continue to impact decisions made in the present.

Binoche and Stewart seem so natural and life-like that it would be tempting to suggest that they are playing characters very close to themselves. But this would also be denigrating and condescending, as if to suggest that they’re not really acting at all. Their give-and-take and the timing of their exchanges, particularly in the rehearsal sequences, is wonderfully fluid and non-theatrical; Binoche works in a more animated register, which makes Stewart’s habitual low-keyed style, which can border on the monotone, function as effectively underplayed contrast. Moretz is all high-keyed confidence.
Given its narrow range of concerns, Clouds of Sils Maria will be mostly of interest to aficionados of theater, acting and the notion of how real and fictional lives can blur to those involved.

Little White Lies

Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart excel in this beautiful, meta-textual two-hander.

To help her through this metaphysically trying time is assistant, Valentine, here played by Kristen Stewart, who delivers a performance of immense poise and texture, retaining good humour in the face of a full-time position which involves being locked in the professional mindset of another woman. Her character, replete with forearm tattoos, vintage band t-shirts and thick black-framed glasses, is one who initially seems like a satirical archetype of the carefree PR dolly, yet Stewart imparts an air of pensive solemnity, seldom exploding into grand, try-hard theatrics.

Assayas uses the women as a conduit through which to discuss the paradoxes of playing roles which (emotionally) can be close to home, and their rapport is complex, lived-in and also dashed with gentle undertow of romantic allure. The director is also using these women as a kind of juxtaposition of generations; literally in their cultural concerns, tastes and human connections, but also through their styles of acting, with Binoche doing hearty, expressive and impassioned (that laugh!) and Stewart more clipped, studied and unwilling to so open up to her touchy-feely employer. Alongside a sub-plot involving the tumultuous life of a hot young Hollywood starlet and paparazzi darling (Chloë Grace Moretz), Assayas is also making a subtle link to Stewart's off-screen persona as well as the Twilight roles which launched her into the stratosphere.

Screen Daily

If there was ever a reminder needed of Juliette Binoche’s great and enduring talent, Assayas delivers it here. He has written his old friend a grand, almost old-fashioned role - that of a vulnerable performer forced to confront herself, both past and present, by re-reading a text she once understood as a young person on her way out to conquer the world in which she now struggles to maintain her grip. An earnest Kristen Stewart, playing her personal assistant, prompts some of the film’s more difficult confrontations and underscores the latent talent that has been suffocated underneath the media hype. It’s an attractive pairing indeed.

CineVue

Both actresses are excellent, with Binoche given more to do and she flips between attempting to get into the skin of her character and back to her normal self. Stewart, on the other hand, has an easy naturalism as she moves from devotion to rebellion without ever being able to fully express herself.

Assayas' Clouds of Sils Maria should go some way to rescuing his Twilight co-star from her teeny stardom and establish her as a serious actress in her own right. It was brave to pitch her against one of the greats in Binoche, but it's a move that has ultimately paid off.

L'Express

Every day during the Cannes Festival, except during headaches and headwinds, Eric Libiot writes to one of the celebrities who walks on the daily red carpet. Letters in 3Cs: Caress, Praise or Slap (The 3 Cs only work in French - Duh). According to the delivery or mood. Today, the heroine of "Sils Maria"

Dear Kristen Stewart,

My apologies. My extreme, sincere apologies. I had not noticed you in the sharp "Twilight" series, meanwhile today, you shine in "Sils Maria" by Olivier Assayas. That being said, I have never seen "Twilight". Nor did I see "Fierce People", or "The Safety of Objects", "Catch That Kid", "Speak", "The Cake Eaters". It's almost a professional misconduct, even if at the moment, I can't recall a particular previous performance worthy of fireworks, if I may.

I can promise you that in the future, I will kneel to see your performances or I will crawl to get there. There hasn't been many impressive female performances this year - not really any big role either, in fact, - Except Marion Cotillard with the Dardenne brothers, Anne Dorval and Suzanne Clément with Xavier Dolan. But starting from where you did, your are without question, the revelation of the Festival. A tornado, a ray of sunshine, a Tagada strawberry, a slap, happiness.

Ironically though, your co-star, Robert Pattinson, also climbed the stairs this year, and twice. Evidently, the both of you do not even come close. He is still in the first grade while you're tackling Ivy League schools. And to see an actress blossom that much is one of the great pleasures of cinema.

It seems that you are capable of anything and everything: War movie, thriller, comedy, cream puff, roast veal, etc.. It looks like a menu rich in calories but anyway. I will be there. There's also "Snow White and the Huntsman 2". But what is that thing? And where is the Prince Charming? And what about the children, what do they do? You'll admit it's not easy to follow you. Do you do it on purpose? Are you testing your fans to see if they will follow? I will tell you right away, I'm here to stay. My degree of resistance is infinite. I've seen all of Alexandre Arcady's films, I can see all of yours. You are way prettier.

Translation SomeLostBliss