Clouds of Sils Maria

The first real professional success for famed French actress Maria Enders was twenty years ago as the co-lead in writer Wilhelm Melchoir's play and subsequent movie "Maloja Snake", he who picked Maria, then an unknown, personally. She played Sigrid, an opportunistic eighteen year old in an emotionally dependent lesbian relationship with forty year old Helena, who was at a vulnerable stage of her life. Maria has turned down the play's upcoming London revival in which she would now play Helena, it remounted by director Klaus Diesterweg. Her reasons for turning down the role are many including: being at a vulnerable stage of her own life going through a painful divorce; remembering the suicide of Susan Rosenberg, the original Helena, following the original run of the play, the suicide purportedly mirroring what happens to Helena; and the painful memories of the production in still having hard feelings toward who was her older male costar, Henryk Wald, with who she had an affair at the time. Maria reconsiders and accepts the role when Wilhelm unexpectedly passes away, she hearing the news en route to the Zurich Film Festival where she was to accept an award on recluse Wilhelm's behalf. Maria begins to regret her decision, largely due to having to work with nineteen year old Jo-Ann Ellis as Sigrid, Jo-Ann a trained actress whose Hollywood lifestyle is making her self-destruct, this behavior which Maria, who hates the Internet and the Hollywood gossip on it, did not know before signing the contract. But what may be most difficult for Maria is the role opening up her own professional relationship and friendship with her younger American personal assistant, Valentine, the two who are staying at Wilhelm's mountain retreat in Sils Maria in the Swiss Alps, where Maria is preparing for the play and where many of the locations were inspiration for the play's themes. —Huggo