Clouds of Sils Maria

Another film that tries to blur the lines between reality and fiction. Only Assayas doesn't bet on atmosphere (and when he does, he fails horribly), instead he turns Sils Maria in a very dialogue-heavy drama that drags itself through the motions, as if Assayas himself got bored by his own idea halfway through.

Stewart is pretty decent, but Moretz appears to be ill at ease and Binoche looks like she didn't even want to be there. With only one of three leads trying to have a little fun, the dialogues quickly turn sour and the film starts to drag itself along. It also doesn't help that I've grown a little tired of films about actors getting lost in their work, it's all a bit too self-indulgent.

At least the setting (the Alps) is quite nice, with some decent landscape photography. Even there Assayas underperforms though, a shoddy nighttime ride being a painful reminder that scenes like these are crucial to ground a film like Sils Maria. When they don't end up working, a lot of the appeal is lost. It's all a bit underwhelming and expected, I'd hoped for more.