Watch the new trailer for Clouds of Sils Maria, a new drama about generational stars and with Kristen Stewart and Chloe Grace Moretz.
Fame and adoration are fleeting, but to a star that once burned with the light of a supernova, they are everything.
It is the basic conceit that has informed generations of self-reflective films, from All About Eve to Birdman. But it takes on a feminine poignancy and tragedy in the upcoming Clouds of Sils Maria, a new drama from writer-director Olivier Assayas, and which knowingly stars three generations of actresses: Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, and Chloe Grace Moretz.
As her international acclaim as a stage and screen marquee name begins to wane, Maria Enders (Binoche) is asked to appear in a revival of a play that made her famous 20 years ago. However, she is now playing the elder character of this two-woman show while the star-making role of the younger is going to a Hollywood starlet with a habit for scandal and disaster (Moretz). Maria’s assistant, meanwhile, is played by Stewart, and she is waiting in the wings for Maria to see more of herself in the play than just the character.
I had the fortune to see Clouds of Sils Maria last year at the New York Film Festival, and it was wonderfully haunting in its intentional retreat to the shadowy corners of the artist’s stage. If it had opened in 2014, it likely would have been on my Top 10 list for last year. You can read my review for it now.
Clouds of Sils Maria opens on April 10, 2015.
