Film critic Steven Rea's picks of the week

Kristen Stewart in "Clouds of Sils Maria" "I've known Kristen for a long time," Julianne Moore said in an interview last year, after teaming with Stewart as mother and daughter in Still Alice. "My husband [Bart Freundlich] directed her in a movie [Catch That Kid] when she was 12 years old, and he would come home and say, 'This girl is extraordinary, and she's going to be a star.'

"So I've always felt that way about her. Always, always."

You may start feeling that way about Twilight's Bella Swan, too, after you see her in Clouds of Sils Maria, now at the Ritz Five. Stewart is Valentine, personal assistant to an A-list actress played by Juliette Binoche. As the duo retreat to an aerie in the Swiss Alps, where Binoche's character is rehearsing a new play and Stewart's is reading the part of a paparazzi-targeted ingenue, all sorts of powerful interplay goes on. Wielding twin smartphones and an acerbic wit, Stewart brings intelligence, strength, vulnerability and some charming goofiness to the role. For her efforts (and it doesn't look like an effort - there's no sign of trying, just being), Stewart was presented with the Best Supporting Actress award at the Cesars - France's equivalent of the Oscars. She is the first American actress to ever win the prize.

An Evening with Lee Grant Bryn Mawr Film Institute, Wednesday, 5:30p.m., $25. A book-signing, a Q & A and a double bill are all on the schedule, as the actress who made her screen debut in William Wyler's 1951 noir, Detective Story (and got an Oscar nomination for it), comes to town. Watch Grant liaising with Warren Beatty in Hal Ashby's '75 classic, Shampoo, a role that won her the supporting actress Academy Award. Then watch Grant with Sydney Poitier in Norman Jewison's landmark '67 mystery, In the Heat of the Night. Grant has also directed features for film and television, and won another Oscar, for her 1986 documentary about poverty in the age of Reaganomics, Down and Out in America. Between the two films, John Hersker, BMFI board member and former Paramount executive vice president, will lead a discussion with Grant. She has stories to tell. For information: www.brynmawrfilm.org, or 610-527-9898.