The typically great Binoche conveys a tantalizing mixture of confidence and unease as she considers her glamorous past and undetermined future.

Binoche leaves audiences with the same exhilarating feeling here — of having witnessed something precious and rare — answering the challenge of Assayas’ script by revealing a character incredibly closer to her soul.

Clouds Of Sils Maria is a great midlife crisis film, in other words, and, like Irma Vep, it’s also a great meta-commentary on contemporary moviemaking, with Assayas making keen observations about modern celebrity, screen-devouring blockbusters, Internet gossip culture, and the next generation of actresses, represented here by Kristen Stewart and Chloë Grace Moretz.

The pleasure in watching the film becomes a linguistic one as Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart masterfully sharpen their words and hurl them at each other like projectiles out of a blowpipe.

If Assayas's film finally falls just shy of being great art itself, it is at least handsomely staged and played with conviction.