Tag: Juliette Binoche

Screening Room: ‘The Taste of Things’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment

Delectable, delicious, all the adjectives that spring to mind with the great food films, The Taste of Things opens later this year in limited release.

My review is at Slant Magazine:

Tran Anh Hung’s The Taste of Things is almost halfway done before it even hints that there’s something going on within its fin-de-siècle setting besides the creation and consumption of beautiful meals. The film’s first half hour is in fact just that, with Eugénie (Juliette Binoche), a veteran cook in the manor home of Dodin (Benoît Magimel), the epicure for whom she’s been working for over 20 years, making an extravagant, multi-course meal for him and his friends. The men eat the food, then compliment Eugénie on her cooking…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘The Truth’

On By chrisbarsantiIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Poster image for The Truth

In the latest family drama from Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters), Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche play a battling mother and daughter whose versions of the past are dramatically different.

The Truth is streaming now here.

My review is at PopMatters:

For Koreeda’s first non-Japanese movie, The Truth is not the sort of film that will likely introduce him to a broad new audience, even in a world where movie theaters were still open. Funny, thoughtful, and occasionally wicked, it feels closer to his more genial entertainments like Our Little Sister (2015) than his sharper and more barbed pieces like Shoplifters or Like Father, Like Son …

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘Non-Fiction’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Books, Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment

In Non-Fiction, the newest movie from Olivier Assayas (Clouds of Sils Maria), a clutch of Parisian intellectuals have affairs, drink wine, and talk about the state of publishing and reading in the modern era. One of them is Juliette Binoche, who always makes things better.

My review is at PopMatters:

“Fewer readers, more books.” “I reject this materialistic society.” “These are narcissistic times.” Those are just a few of the cheery bon mots being lobbed around in the opening minutes of Olivier Assayas’s argumentative but thin wannabe literary salon of a movie…

Screening Room: ‘Let the Sunshine In’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment

Juliette Binoche in Let the Sunshine In (Sundance Selects)

In the latest from Claire Denis (White Material), Juliette Binoche plays an artist who is unlucky in love but doesn’t let that stop her from trying again, and again, and…

Let the Sunshine In is opening this week in limited release. My review is at Film Journal International:

Not long after the awkward lovemaking scene that opens the movie, Isabelle (Juliette Binoche) gets an unasked-for reality check from her occasional boyfriend, Vincent (the superbly seedy Xavier Beauvois): “You’re charming, but my wife is extraordinary.” If he had reached over and slapped her, the look on her face would have been about the same. She doesn’t keep mooning around after Vincent much longer. But while they don’t berate the staff or provide lectures on her inadequacies, the next men she ends up crying over aren’t much better…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘The Wait’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment

thewait1

In L’Atessa (The Wait), a grieving mother played by Juliette Binoche meets her son’s girlfriend for the first time after a funeral that’s left her emotionally devastated. Emotional gamesmanship ensues.

The Wait is playing now in limited release. My review is at Film Journal International:

Holding the center of Piero Messina’s dark oil painting of a story is Juliette Binoche, deftly submarined as Anna, the mother in mourning, with a grief-etched countenance as striking as worn granite. Unable to come to grips with her loss, she waits in a grand, remote Sicilian estate where the mirrors are covered in black shrouds and appears uninhabited even by the people who live there. Anna’s dark watch is interrupted by the arrival of Jeanne (Lou de Laâge), the pert French girlfriend of her son Giuseppe, whom she has never met. Invited by Giuseppe to spend the days before Easter at his house, Jeanne shows up in the funeral’s aftermath to find that he’s not there to greet her. Anna is welcoming but formal, distant and evasive…

Here’s the trailer:

New in Theaters: ‘Clouds of Sils Maria’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment

Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart in 'Clouds of Sils Maria' (Sundance Selects)
Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart in ‘Clouds of Sils Maria’ (Sundance Selects)

In Olivier Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria, a venerable actress with a prickly assistant agrees to play the older character in a play that made her famous when she was in the younger role, now cast with a Lindsay Lohan-esque up-and-comer. It’s a rich dramatic environment, suggesting a marriage of Persona and All About Eve.

Clouds of Sils Maria opens this week; my review is at Film Racket:

In this richly satisfying film about age and art, a battle of wills over a new production of a classic play becomes a Rorschach test for two women’s friendship. It’s another subtext-laden drama from Olivier Assayas, whose best work has dug into the simmering tensions of long-term relationships and come up with melodramatic gold. Clouds of Sils Maria won’t be counted among his greater achievements like Summer Hours. But it’s a return to form for a director whose more recent films (Carlos, Something in the Air) have been packed with energy but lacking heft…

Here’s the (somewhat misleading) trailer: