Delayed Reaction: Clouds of Sils Maria

The Pitch: An actress deals with aging in her profession in an overt way.

It's nice when you get to finally check off a movie that you've been circling for a while. I think I can call myself a Kristen Stewart fan at this point. I've seen most of the movies she's made since Jumper in 2008. That's more by accident than intent. I always thought that she was unfairly maligned for being in Twilight. No one is great in those movies. Otherwise, she's picked interesting roles. She's great in Still Alice and Camp X-Ray. The Runaways was fun and On the Road was a valiant effort. I'm much less secretly a Chloe Grace Moretz* fan. She's intrigued me ever since Kick-Ass. I've only missed a handful of her many films since then. I have less of an opinion of Juliette Binoche, but I think I remember liking her in Chocolat and The English Patient. Clouds of Sils Maria was in my Netflix queue for a while because of that trio of actresses. There was added intrigue when Stewart became the first American to win a Cesar award (French Oscar) for her work in the film. It kept getting pushed back in my list for some reason. That happens to films that I suspect I'll have to ruminate on a little longer. I can't make those background noise like an Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel.

*Although I'm still not sure if the Grace is still to be included.

I can't say the movie made a big impression on me. It's good. The thing about meta-commentary in a film is that sometimes it's clever and other times it's too on-the-nose. Often, the deciding factor for how I feel about it is my mood at the time. The meta-stuff mostly worked. However, what worked entirely was the relationship between Stewart and Binoche. I loved everything about that. It felt very real. There's affection between them but they also know exactly how to get on each others' nerves. I'm still trying to figure out what I think of Stewart's exit from the film. I think, I liked it...but I don't know why.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend