Rehearsing for a revival of the play that made her famous proves unexpectedly challenging for an esteemed actress in this French drama starring Juliette Binoche. While she knows all the dialogue, the difficulty is being asked to the play the older of the two protagonists (a la Michael Caine assuming the Laurence Olivier role in the remake of 'Sleuth'). Further tensions arise as the older protagonist is manipulated by the younger one in the play with Binoche wondering how close she may be to the older character. Fascinating as all this might sound, the film is nevertheless hard to get through at times with the plot not really taking off until 40 minutes in when Binoche views online clips of her bratty co-star to-be and tries to rehearse knowing what her co-star is like. At its best, the film blurs reality as Binoche and her personal assistant practise with it often ambiguous whether the pair are really fighting or simply rehearsing. There are also some memorable bits as the pair discuss whether science fiction dramas can have merit and the notion that "thinking about a text is different to living it", but these sparks unfortunately fizzle out before the film is over. As others have observed, the movie has a curious meta quality with Binoche playing an actress character very similar to herself, but the protracted first forty and final fifteen minutes oddly leads the film succeeding best in its middle section.

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...

As beautiful as this movie is to look at, I found it a little over- complicated with too many confusing sub-plots, several of which are aborted. Early on, it looks like the presence of an old flame on-set is going to be a major issue for Binoche, but that melts away. It looks like her relationship with the young actress playing the lead is going to be an issue, but that only leads to one minor spat near the end. Her PA rehearses scenes with her in a way that implies some sort of Sapphic love, but this evaporates too (except perhaps in the mysterious nauseous episode). Plenty to mull over. But fabulous scenery, esp. the breathtaking 'Snake' of cloud, and great performances from both Binoche (more animated than ever before) and Stewart.

Clouds of Sils Maria is probably the best film of 2014. Insightful character study into the artistic and life defining moments in the life of great dramatic actress, featuring a career-defining performance by Juliette Binoche (one of her many), Sils Maria is meditation on power, desire, loyalty and the passing of time. Binoche and Moretz play actresses who are nothing like themselves: Moretz's Jo-Ann is talented, but a wild-child darling of the tabloids, while Binoche's Maria is frightened of aging and haunted by ghosts of her past.Another area in which the film really excels is in its gorgeous landscape cinematography, courtesy of cinematographer Yorick Le Saux. The clouds of the English title (the original French title is superior, just Sils Maria) refer to the 'Maloja snake', a cloud formation that winds its way through the mountains of Sils Maria, which is beautifully captured on-screen in an inspired re-creation of a film shown within this film, Arnold Fanck's 1924 short Cloud Phenomena of Maloja.In many ways, "Clouds of Sils Maria" is very similar to the mountain path that Maria and Valentine hike one morning, hoping to catch a peek at the ominous snaking clouds. It's winding, not all that clearly marked, and it sure takes time and patience, but by the end, you're left with quite a view.