Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

sol- 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.

lazlo_buddy If this is "Birdman" for female actors, then we aren't paying attention. We're lazy, lazy people with no real respect for women. In "Birdman," the main character gets to talk about the pain of human life -- universal feelings amongst all of us. He gets to rail at a snobby critic for that critic not having ever created anything and been vulnerable to criticism. The conversations are about art, creating, acting, being judged, growing up, becoming irrelevant, finding relevance, relationships with wives and daughters and antagonizing co-workers, the list goes on. With "Birdman," the main character gets to have a second voice that is his -- another version of him -- which is so much more artfully and intelligently done. "Birdman" was a brilliant film. "Sils," by comparison, is limp and slow, not at all nuanced, and super lazy as a thought exercise. The Hollywood voice-over during the trailer would sound something like: "This one's old. This one's young. WHO WINS?" And to be clear, that's not what _I_ think of Juliette Binoche and KStew. That's how dumb and simplistic this move is. The currency of youth is the only value a woman offers, let's talk? Bah! That's a privileged, small man's view, and an old man's view from a culture that values women mostly as sex objects and mother/mystery-goddess blah blah blah. What a pointless way to see half of the population. Beyond the supposition that these two movies don't compare, this move was strongly peppered with problems, moments that make you roll your eyes, and a lack of clarity. Over and over again, I kept thinking, "Where did this conversation begin?" "Why is Maria laughing so hard and so fakely? Is that bad acting, or is it intentional to show her discomfort?" "Why is Val suddenly so angry? Did something happen?" Look, if Val had been her personal assistant -- and clearly an adept and experienced one -- for so long, she would _know_ who this woman was. Val would've been familiar with Maria. Their relationship wouldn't have been so burdened by a time alone. So, her sudden disgust with Maria made no sense. Any long term, mutually beneficial relationship involves understanding and accepting the other person's foibles. So, for Val to so quickly become irked at Maria to the point of abandoning her in the Alps without a map -- whaaaht? Where did that come from? They disagree, so Val tries to make Maria's life end like Helena's did in the play? Or, no wait. Maybe not, b/c now Maria is alive and being offered a part in a futuristic movie, b/c she's a "timeless" creature. Oh. okay. Why did Wilhelm's wife burn his scripts but save a couple pages? Why the intro of some past lover Maria hates, but she gives him her room number -- even though this actress should have more self-respect than that -- and then we never see him again? Why does Val go along with Maria if she finds Maria's opinions and condescension so annoying? What happened between Val and Ber(nt?)? Why focus on the new pages in the play if we're not going to see how they change the ending of the play? Oh, because the ending of the movie changed? Ugh. Really? The relationship stressors were forced and not shown. The story was scattered and created a totally forced sense of loneliness only when it needed to. The characters outside of Val and Maria were one-note. (And frankly, the advertisements for Switzerland were not very well masked to be enjoyable. Lord, the number of long scenes rolling over the mountains. It's not as pretty as it is in real life. Cut that out!)I feel sorry for Juliette Binoche and KStew. They were good. KStew is growing, and I hope she continues to hone her art. Juliette Binoche was kind of amazing running her lines as Helena. My heart flew into my chest when she cried out and cleared the kitchen table's contents onto the floor. I felt something in that one moment, where the rest of the movie made me feel nothing but a mild sense of resentment at a male dominated hierarchy.

mirkobozic Juliette Binoche couples up for the very first time with Kristen Stewart in a movie about the famous actress Maria Enders (Binoche) preparing for a re-staging of the piece that made her famous, only this time in the role of the older of the two heroines. She has a very hard time coming to terms that she's past her prime and can't play certain roles any more. Together with her assistant Valentine (Stewart) she travels to the Swiss mountain hideaway of her late mentor to study the text and go through the scenes again. This becomes a painful journey into self-reflection forcing her to face her inner demons, which is aided by Valentine's confrontations with her. In certain moments, we're left to wonder if the things are saying are from the Maria's script or the characters themselves, which turns the film into a multi-layered experience dense with dialogues that carry all the drama. The contrast between the glamorous public life and the delicate, quite intimacy of Maria's private life is a take on how it really feels to be famous nowadays, or what happens when you go back home, and take off the dress and the jewels. Binoche has the ability of inhabiting all her roles with some sort of delicate melancholia that occasionally falls over the threshold of suppressed lust. This is evident here too, as we're left wondering if there's any sexual tension between her and Stewart. I didn't expect much from her but here she proved a worthy sparing partner to Binoche. Chloe Grace Moretz shines as well in the small role of Maria's co-star, the troubled and chaotic teenage diva. This little gem of a movie shares some similarities with Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder's 1950 masterpiece with Gloria Swanson as the deluded silent film diva Norma Desmond who lives in a dream world where, enabled by her butler, she still believes to be a star. Both films address the subject of psychology and pressures of fame, which always comes at a price and consequences some people don't handle very well. In particular, it's about accepting frustrating changes without the luxury of doing it out of the limelight.

siderite The great performances of the actors in the film are offset only by the stubbornness of the director to not display anything else. Complex characters played brilliantly by Binoche, Stewart and Moretz express so many different emotions related to the female psyche - after all, the film was written at Binoche's challenge to Olivier Assayas to make a movie about women - yet they refuse to describe any coherent one character. I feel that this is on purpose, as all three women are basically just facets of the same archetypal female.With this material and these talented women, it could have been a great film, however Assayas' work is defiled by his own ego. The stories of the characters interweave with his life and work, with connections to some of his films, including the one that he wrote for Binoche for her first major role and reminding, for no good reason, of Ingmar Bergman's work. In the end, when you are left wondering "what the hell was this film about?", you realize that it is a lot about the guy that both wrote and directed it. Big surprise there!That being said, my conclusion is that it is a very difficult to rate a movie. Great performances, nice direction, good soundtrack and a plot that weaves into itself to tease the viewer into subtleties of emotion and understanding. Yet if you, like me, couldn't give a damn about Olivier Assayas, you will find it difficult to accept the ending that provides no resolution whatsoever. Perhaps it is a brush of genius, though: if it's really about women, then you only get a series of WTF moments including the final one. It's a play on a play about a play.