When I saw the ambiguously titled The Clouds of Sils Maria last fall at the Chicago International Film Festival, one thought rang in my brain on the chilly walk home. Twilight star Kristen Stewart is amazing in this movie, the kind of career-swinging role that, if seen by the right people, can transform a low-tier teen celebrity into an A-list actress. Without resorting to a showy in-your-face role full of hysterics — crying, yelling, screaming, fighting (ala Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook) — she performs a straightforward character straightforwardly, which makes it all the more impressive, eye-catching even, that her performance is sensational. She injects a subtle wit into the character beyond what most actresses her age could conceive of, an underlying emotional furnace that naturally warms to the surface instead of through hotheaded contrivance. So it came as no surprise to anyone who saw Maria on the festival circuit last year that she went on to win best supporting actress at the César Awards (The French equivalent of the Oscars. It received 6 nominations, including film, director, and actress), the first American ever to do so in the entire history of the ceremony. She’s an early possibility for best supporting actress at the 2016 Oscars. Honestly, I hope she wins.

That Stewart’s real life embodies the mediation between an actress, an artist, a starlet, a celebrity, is wholly appropriate. It happens to be Maria’s own subject of study, which throws two actresses (and a wide-eyed assistant, Stewart’s character) into the revealing ring of psychodrama. Like Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars, Hollywood, celebrity, commerce, and the boundaries between art and the artist are all put under a hazy microscope, with most of the running time behaving like a chamber drama on the go. If lengthy dialogue scenes aren’t your thing, I say skip it. Most of the film sees Juliette Binoche’s character of an aging actress engaging in emotional, verbal, and intellectual sparring with Stewart’s loyal assistant (and ever in the literal and figurative shadow of Binoche’s character, Maria Enders). With them is Chloe Grace Moretz playing a volatile, mouthy starlet on the rise, fresh out of rehab and with a new “Mutant” sci-fi B-picture hitting cinemas. Stewart’s character, Valentine, worships the energy and audacity of Moretz’s Jo-Ann Ellis, while Enders sees Ellis as a smug and capable but ultimately unproven talent. The three of them are fantastic in their roles. This may be expected of Binoche, but Moretz duly impresses.