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Personal Shopper (2016) Poster

3 /10

Dull arthouse wannabe

Warning: Spoilers

PERSONAL SHOPPER is a would-be French horror flick that plays out as more of an arthouse drama for the most part. It's the LOST IN TRANSLATION of horror films, as the camera follows the generally uninteresting Kristen Stewart (complete with gratuitous nude shots) as she grieves for the loss of a sibling, helps a medium with her work, and becomes convinced that she herself is being haunted. It's slow and boring throughout, with a trite script and dullish characters that'll have you reaching for the off switch. I previously enjoyed the director's miniseries CARLOS THE JACKAL, but this is a big step down from that.

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4 /10

needed two tries

Maureen (Kristen Stewart) is unable to make contact with her late twin brother Lewis as perspective buyers are concerned about spirits haunting the house. They tell her about the artist Hilma af Klint who claimed to be inspired by the spirit world. She has the same medical issue which caused Lewis' death. She is the personal shopper and fashion consultant for superstar Kyra.

My first attempt put me to sleep. At first, I thought she's a bad con-woman. Then I thought she's a bad spiritualist. Then I thought why she has a day job and not that happy about it. Then I fell asleep not caring that much about this movie. Part of this is Stewart's low energy acting and the docu-style of the filmmaking. My second attempt went much better. I finally figured out the opening scenes. It does turn into Ghostbusters and Hollow Man. I'd rather have the ghost story take front and center. I don't care that much about her job or her boss. Overall, I feel like Stewart acts most of time. I feel blah about this movie.

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6 /10

Stewart triumphs once again

Warning: Spoilers

"Personal Shopper" is a French-German co-production that is in the English language because the lead actress here is Kristen Stewart. Writer and director is French filmmaker Olivier Assayas and he worked with Stewart very recently already on a movie that resulted in major critics awards recognition for the young actress. So no surprise that they decided to reunite so quickly and this time Stewart is even the lead actress (and not Binoche). The German impact comes through the participation of actors like von Waldstätten and Eidinger in supporting roles. But it is really Stewart's movie. She is in absolutely every scene from start to finish and gives a commanding performance that manifests her in the acting elite from her generation, probably even as the number 1 at this point. She has her very own niche in terms pf physicality and approach and she fills it with grace. People who still think she sucks because of what she did in Twilight a decade ago have certainly lost their credicble connection when it comes to understanding what film is about these days.

Now about this one here: It runs for 105 minutes approximately and is a relatively dark film. Stewart plays a personal shopper for a celebrity, which means she is busy buying her clothes because the star does not have time for that herself. But she is much more. She is also a medium who tries to get in contact with her deceased twin brother and now you already see why I call this a pretty dark movie. Stewart's looks fit the character very nicely. It's obvious she is suffering a lot from the whole situation and her encounters with ghosts make things even worse. And if that isn't already enough, she already suffers from a rare heart disease that complicates things, even if she says it doesn't worry her. The movie itself takes several directions in terms of the approach to mystery and horror and thriller. Sometimes the ghosts are very visible in ghost form, sometimes they are visible in human form, sometimes they aren't visible at all, can only be heard and at one point the film even turns into a murder mystery, during which one character tries to use the protagonist for his own sinister purposes when he frames her with murder. Will it work out? Watch for yourself.

Anyway, as a whole I enjoyed this movie for the most part. Lengths are almost non-existent, but I am probably a bit biased here as I just love watching Stewart as an actress and not only is she stunningly beautiful again while still pulling off that somewhat casual regular look and male audiences can be interested here in particular because we get to see a whole lot of her here and with this I don't just mean her looking stunningly beautiful in an expensive dress. And what we hear from her in one particular scene is almost even better. No more spoilers. You need to watch this one and you will immediately know what I mean. I personally thought Stewart gives an awesome performance that would have deserved an Oscar nomination, but it is okay. I'm sure her first Academy Award (nomination) is only a matter of time because of how unique she is right now in the industry. She puts her full talent on display here and carries a pretty good movie by herself. The only people that I would not recommend seeing it are those who neither like Stewart nor supernatural (yet subtle) horror films. The only reason why I did not give it a higher rating is probably because ghost movies are not exactly my cup of tea. But Stewart makes it work and elevates the material a lot, no doubt about it.

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6 /10

Unknown Sender

Warning: Spoilers

Maureen (Kristen Stewart) is working in Paris as a personal shopper for Kyra (Nora von Waldstätten) someone who is famous for being famous and posing with guerrillas from what I can figure out. She is also attempting to contact her dead twin brother Lewis who had a genetic heart condition, the same one Maureen has. Her doctor told her not to use emotional facial expressions or brush her hair, so back off Kristen haters. It is a condition.

Odd things happen in the film. Kristen is bothered by " unknown sender". She has a "class 4 encounter" with someone that is not her brother. Then more weird things happen and there was a dress up and masturbation scene which really didn't add anything to the film except a second very pale nude scene. The film sort of went somewhere, although I wasn't sure where it went. A different kind of ghost story.

Guide: F-word. Nudity (Kristen Stewart)

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7 /10

Living la vida ...

Loca or terror? I have to admit the title made me think this woud be a drama! Like just a straight drama about a personal shopper/assistant, whatever you want to call Stewarts character. But it is more than that. It has horror elements in it. It makes sense that it is part of the Home of Horror network of Amazon then (at least in Germany that is).

Kristen Stewart plays her character very well and goes to lengths I did not expect (including a nude scene - not in a sexual sense, still displaying her or rather her characters vulnerability). The movie may make sense to you after watching it once or you may think it's madness ... but it is a slow burner and you have to dig that, otherwise you'll be lost! Or the movie will be in your eyes and therefor the time you've spent with it. Especially a big portion of time where she is texting back and forth ... you will either find it eerie or pretentious ... there are no grey areas here. I thought this was well made overall and tells it story more than nicely.

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6 /10

on the fringes of celebrity

Warning: Spoilers

Since the end of the Twilight franchise, Kristen Stewart has been branching out into other kinds of roles. One is Olivier Assayas's "Personal Shopper", in which she plays a young woman (a personal shopper for a celebrity, in fact) who starts having encounters with a mysterious entity. Sort of a mix of drama and thriller, the movie's high points are the texting conversations between Stewart's character and an unknown sender. The movie concludes on sort of a confusing note. Maybe it implied that the eerie visions were her own subconscious guilt about what happened.

I wouldn't call it any sort of great movie, but I liked the focus on the character's feeling of descent into madness (if that's what it was). I hope that Kristen Stewart continues with these more cerebral roles.

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Kristen Stewart as a personal shopper and a mystic in France.

My wife and I watched this movie on DVD from our public library. The disc has a couple of interesting extras that shed light on the whys and whats of making this movie.

The writer-director is the same one that did "Clouds of Sils Maria" a couple of years earlier, and he considers this one a companion piece although the only other connection is the actress playing the lead role here.

Kristen Stewart is an American, Maureen, living and working in France, Paris and the surrounding area just a short train ride away. She actually hates her job as personal shopper for Kyra, a celebrity, but she does it very efficiently and very well, riding her scooter all over Paris.

She is also a mystic, she can sense the presence of the deceased. She had a twin brother, both of them with similar heart conditions. He died 3 months earlier and they had made a pact, whichever one died first would wait around to be contacted by the dead sibling. That is why she was still there.

There are a number of characters, there is a stalker, there is a murder, but the whole movie is really a character study of Maureen, how she deals with everything that is being thrown at her while attempting to contact her dead brother. She isn't sure she even believes that it can happen.

This is not one of my favorite movies, however it grabbed and held my attention all the way, and Stewart is really good in her role. Actually an award-quality performance.

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8 /10

a different definition for 'Ghosting' (aka "Ghost-Text: The Movie")

A movie I didn't think I would contemplate while watching Personal Shopper came to me, and it made me appreciate Assayas's work all the more: Unfriended. Anyone remember that piece of trash? I know not all felt the way I did, but Unfriended represented, for my money, a completely impoverished sense of making material cinematic; that film, if you may recall, was kind of a Skype-found footage horror movie where one saw the action take place in real time on a computer screen with sometimes video of people looking at their computers screens/web-cams, but mostly it was seeing lots and lots and lots of text being typed and exchanged (and, as something else that made me think of it, it's a spirit from beyond the grave who is giving back to the teenagers and bullies).

What bothered me when I saw that (aside from a roster of horrible actors, characters and clichés from slashers and found footage), was that there was nothing redeeming the material through the power of cinematic grammar. That may sound a little much to expect, but if one is trying to use modern technology to make a unique spin on a genre experience, then it should have something new to offer our eyes and senses as part of the mis-en-scene, pacing and other facets of filmmaking. What makes Personal Shopper stand out as a much stronger example of what Unfriended died and failed to do was that Assayas is using technology through much of the film - text messages make up a good 50% of the screen-time here, if not more - but he also has two assets as a filmmaker: first, his lead and possible muse Kristen Stewart, who is there to react to the texts and is an active agent engaging with whoever this 'Unknown' is who about 35/40 minutes into the movie starts messaging her and making her feel alienated and distressed, and secondly that he builds suspense and finds realistic moments to take a break in the action of the texts.

That is to say, she may be on a train, for example, and messaging with this 'Unknown', and then she has to get off the train or find somewhere else, or there's the trepidation or suspense if she'll actually message back to a message that seems very creepy or suspicious or to increase her paranoia and so on. It's one of the few times that I can think of that a filmmaker has made something that is now practically ubiquitous to the lives of those with smartphones (that is, everyone in the modern world), and yet it's a useful device for tension and drama and conflict for our heroine. The other positive is that it's not all that this movie has up its sleeve; on the contrary, this is a ghost story, but it's really Assayas taking the ghost story as a vehicle not so much for horror (though there are some scenes that may make people jump if they're especially prone to things that 'apparition' in front or behind someone, and a particularly brutal murder), but for an existential sort of inquiry: if there are ghosts and an after-life, shouldn't that be slightly optimistic, that there is some after-life to look out for?

What's so strong though is Assayas filming everything with a keen sense of creating suspense when he has to, but also creating a mood for his star to become equal parts vulnerable, strong, confused, sexually aroused (yeah, that kind of happens at one point, thanks to a dress with early 20th century Germanic overtones due to the black leather straps), and searching and questioning as a performer. And it's Stewart herself, who's occasional (or often) trembling and nervous quality serves Maureen really well at times - notice the close-ups of her shaking thumbs - and yet there's a lot of depth here that may be easy to miss that she brings to this character. She has to hold our attention, and at first I wondered if she could (she's in practically every scene - there's one where I thought, maybe, she's an invisible spirit herself?) and she does. She's attractive and yet, as someone I was with pointed out to me after the movie ended, it's a 'Tablua Rasa' sort of thing too: we can project how we feel about her reactions, to the texts, to the people she's around and a little separate from (mostly the rich people she shops personally for, hence the title), and also on the film itself.

Is it all a blank slate? Yes and no, and that's what keeps the intrigue for me. Though by the very end, I was hoping for a little more clarity than what I got - some may not feel that way, and there's certainly an emotional undercurrent to that last shot that can be felt greatly. But I wish it hadn't been SO ambiguous; it leaves what is a pretty good, sometimes marvelous and alluring and daring dramatic thriller, in the space of what could have been a masterwork. But, hey, texts are now interesting on a cinematic level, so major ups to Assayas for making that leap.

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Too busy being artistic

This film tells the story of an American woman who refuses to leave Paris, because her twin brother died of a heart attack in Paris. As both of them have a supernatural ability to contact spirits, she stays behind trying to make contact with her brother.

"Personal Shopper" blends horror and thriller into a film. The trailer looks cool, and I had high hopes for it. Unfortunately, the opening scene is already tortuously slow and boring. I don't really think looking at Kristen Stewart walking around in a house is that interesting. Then, we see her mundane but rather unusual job as a personal shopper. The film tries to convince me that Kristen Stewart is a medium, but it seems that she spends a lot of time being unconvinced of her ability. The ending gets everyone in the auditorium very confused, as the messages are conflicting. Overall, Kristen Stewart is very good in the film, but the film is too busy being artistic, and not spend enough time to deliver a good story.

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7 /10

Well, how's within that, that the soul, continues to exist, after death?

Personal Shopper is written and directed by Olivier Assayas. It stars Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Sigrid Bouaziz, Anders Danielsen Lie, Ty Olwin and Hammou Graïa. Cinematography is by Yorick Le Saux.

A personal shopper in Paris refuses to leave the city until she makes contact with her twin brother who previously died there. Her life becomes more complicated when a mysterious person starts to contact her via text messages.

Personal Shopper is a film that's impossible to recommend with any confidence, even if I personally liked it well enough. It was booed on first showing at Cannes, yet upon the second main screen viewing of it, it got a five minute standing ovation. If you look at the reviews on sites such as IMDb you will see plenty of 1/10 reviews mixed with high scoring ones, evidence of the divisive nature of Assayas' picture. A lot of people went into it expecting a "Paranormal Activity" type of film, but it's far from that.

It's a meditation on grief and the complexities of the mind and the human condition under duress. Stewart gives her all for the director, a real bravura performance. Yes, the ending is either going to make or break your faith in what you have just witnessed, but if you buy into, and think about the narrative's trajectory, this has haunting and ethereal rewards. 7/10

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8 /10

Uneasy & Unique...Haunting & Original...Kristin Stewart Captivates

Defying all Preconceived Ideas of Genre, Categorization, Expectations, and Notions of any kind, this Art-House Movie is an Unsettling Treat for those that Seek Real Mystery in the Paranormal and Depth in Character of those that are Immersed in its Grip.

Kristen Stewart Dominates this Powerful Picture of a Grieving Twin Sister that recently Lost Her Brother to Heart Disease. Both Twins, it seems, considered Themselves Conduits to the "Other Side" and Promised Contact if one of Them Passed.

This is a Strange, Totally Unique Film that Haunts as it Follows this Troubled Woman on Her Quest to Find a Path to Another Dimension. If Kristen Stewart isn't in Every Scene, it sure Feels Like She is. It's Not an Easy Role and She Rides this Scary and at times Terrifying Tale of a Down to Earth Woman that is Reaching for Other Worlds.

Infantile Viewers who must be Spoon Fed Puzzle Pieces of Meaning are Not going to Enjoy this Genre Bending and Baffling Display that has European Cinema Sensibilities.

Others who Look for something Apart from the Usual and Far from the Mainstream will Find this a Rewarding Experience.

Overall, Not for Everyone and must be Viewed with No Expectations or Preconceptions. It must be Approached with an Open Mind...just Like the Paranormal.

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8 /10

Living Someone Else's Life

If someone were to ask me to compile a list of my least favorite actresses, Kristen Stewart would always be on it. I've never liked her and have never understood why others do. She always seems to be p*ssed off in the way that sulky teenagers are always p*ssed off, or she's sullenly morose, in a way that feels vapid rather than deep.

But then I saw her in "Personal Shopper," Olivier Assayas's enigmatic rumination on the tenuousness of life, and while I don't know that her performance has permanently changed my mind, it did make clear to me that I can like Stewart when given the right vehicle and role.

In "Personal Shopper," Stewart plays Maureen, a young troubled woman drifting through Paris as the personal assistant to a petulant celebrity. She hates her job, but she won't leave Paris until she has used her self-identified skills as a medium to communicate with her recently dead brother, whose death she can not get over. She soon starts getting text messages from someone who won't identify him or herself, and who eventually leads Stewart into a murder investigation.

That murder investigation doesn't take place until very late into the movie, and it's not really important to the plot. This is not a movie about what happens to Maureen but rather about what happens inside Maureen's head. She spends her days living someone else's life, and the film suggests that this half life is possible for all of us if we let it be, living in the world but not of it.

Those seeking tidy answers will be frustrated by this movie, but of course if that's what people want they shouldn't be watching an Assayas movie in the first place. I enjoyed the film's ambiguity, and I actually thought it was pretty accessible even if Assayas's methods are a bit unconventional. The last scene of the film strikes the perfect balance between eerie and sad and goes down as one of the more memorable conclusions to any film I've seen this year.

Grade: A

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7 /10

A pretty good modern ghost story

I don't know much about ghost stories, but I have been gravitating to them of late. This one is the most realistic one I have run into so far. A woman's twin-brother has passed away and she is preoccupied with an oath they had made, whoever dies first will try to pierce the divide and leave a sign for the other. There is a rather sadistic soundtrack consisting of a free-floating sonar-like program but instead of underwater, we get a generalized array of ambient tracks from whatever locale our POV character happens to be at the time and at an extremely high decibel level. If the idea is to keep the viewer a little on edge, it succeeds. There is an extraordinarily realistic visitation scene which frightens. There is a sequence where an unknown texter is harassing the survivor, which under the circumstances, is more than a little eerie.

The denouement is predictably unclear except perhaps for especially perceptive viewers of which I do not belong. But an explanation is there that seems quite convincing (I had to read it from a review) which I give the movie credit for. It's not just a scary story that leads nowhere.

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7 /10

texting and spirits

Greetings again from the darkness. This is quite probably the first ghost story where the most suspenseful moments center on the texts popping up on a smart phone screen. From writer/director Olivier Assayas (Clouds of Sils Maria), this one is more than a ghost story – it's also a story of grief, a search for identity, and yes, that desire or need to connect with the afterlife.

It's important to note that the film kicks off not with Maureen (Kristen Stewart) carrying out her duties as described in the title, but rather by being dropped off at a once grand country home, now abandoned and the source of some terrific sound mixing. Creaking floorboards, squeaking doors and groaning walls all serenade Maureen as she spends the night in search of the spirit world. We soon learn she was actually hoping to connect with her recently deceased brother Lewis … a twin with whom she had a pact that whomever passed first (they shared a heart "malformation") would make contact with the other from beyond.

Maureen then returns to her day job as personal shopper and all-around go-fer to her egotistical celebrity boss Kyra (Nora von Waldstatten), a high profile fashion model whose snooty ways have Maureen spewing hatred of her job during Skype sessions with her long-distance boyfriend Gary (Ty Olwin). With incessantly slumped shoulders, Maureen zips around Paris on her scooter toting shopping bags filled with expensive dresses, jewelry and shoes. She's on the outskirts of wealth and celebrity, but the to-do notes and lack of personal interaction with Kyra epitomize how far outside the circle Maureen really sits.

There are moments of acting support from Sigrid Bouaziz as Lewis' girlfriend, and Lars Eidinger as a suspiciously low-key creep, but it's Kristen Stewart who carries the full weight of the film, and continues her streak of very interesting work. She does so in a manner not shy about showing her body, but also with the authentic body language of someone whose frustration grows with each successive text from "unknown". As a modern twist to the traditional thriller, the film also ties in the past with such touches as Swedish mystic Hilma of Klint and amateur spirit hunter Victor Hugo. It's understandable how Mr. Assaya's film received both boos AND a standing ovation at Cannes … no one is really sure how to react to the first texting ghost story!

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6 /10

Interesting in parts but it doesn't add up

Warning: Spoilers

I had low expectations given that some French films are annoyingly incomprehensible much ado about nothing pretentious wastes of time. This movie comes to nothing but I liked some of the separate parts that don't add up to a coherent whole. I just gave up expecting a complete meaningful story.

I liked seeing her ride round in a scooter around Paris and take the Eurostar. Even trying on clothes is quite fun to watch (warning there is some unnecessary nudity).

The ghostly goings on are almost comically out of place. As is the sudden darker turn of events.

Kristen Stewart looks in turn grungy and glamorous. She is pretty so I wish she wouldn't act and talk in the rushed clipped tomboyish way that reminds of Jodie Foster. She needs to slow down her speech and vary her expressions from sullen to show more a range of emotions.

More for K Stew fans.

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3 /10

Failure!

I don't think there is much good to say about Personal Shopper. Well at least I can't, how much I try, there is absolutely nothing positive that comes into my mind about this movie. The story is very slow and overly boring. You have to be a huge fan of Kristen Stewart to appreciate this movie. I wasn't before and I'm certainly not now. She looks depressed all the time, for no good reason at all. Her facial expressions are just not what you expect from a good actress. In these modern ages all you see now are people texting or doing something with their stupid phones. Everybody becomes very boring because of their phones. So if I already have to watch those boring people in real life I certainly don't want to do that when I watch a movie to relax. And that's what you get for a long time in Personal Shopper, Kristen Stewart texting like she's still a teenager. And that goes on and on. I have to admit I fought against sleep and at one point I lost. When I woke up I didn't feel the urge of rewinding to the point where I closed my eyes. Because I couldn't care less anymore about Kristen Stewart texting.

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Hokum or not, Personal Shopper will keep you thinking and guessing.

"I mean there are invisible... presences... around us. Always. I mean whether or not they're the souls of the dead, I don't know, but... You know when you're a medium you just are attuned to some sort of... vibe." Maureen (Kristin Stewart)

Horror film? not so much as rather a satisfying study of grief and letting go. Make no mistake, in Personal Shopper horror tropes occur regularly as Maureen is visited by phantasms that could or could not be her deceased twin brother.

Just like Stewart's unaffected but convincing acting style, Assayas's terrifying techniques eschew the showy and offer the subtle. I have had convincing spiritualist experiences but still remain skeptical about the presence of the deceaseds' souls. Just so with Personal Shopper: I'm ever a skeptic although I am convinced that believing in a presence is common for intense grief, and expunging is a slow process.

Every scene is Maureen's from extensive close-ups to point of view shots allowing us to see the presence or feel its power with its stomping or dropping glass. In that sense, writer/director Asseyas is affirming the ghosts while leaving some of us in denial accompanied by a confirmation that she believes in what she sees, at least until the closing line.

If you don't believe what you're seeing, you will believe the beauty of the Paris, London, and Oman locations, again underplayed but integral to the belief system Assayas challenges with every frame. As for the title, she is personally searching for an identity, the present personal shopping affording only minimally vicarious pleasure. Of course, she is shopping for her lost brother and her ability to live without his ghost.

A murder makes the proceedings real, a quiet acknowledgment that even if the spiritualism seems suspect, blood, police, and a murderer are palpable. Modernizing with anonymous text messages to the heroine ("I know you") brings us close to the reality of living in the hectic presence with just the putative contact of another world to take us briefly away from our own.

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7 /10

an empath's self-reliant rite-of-passage to bring down the curtain on a bereavement

Warning: Spoilers

The sophomore collaboration between Olivier Assayas and Kristen Stewart after CLOUDS OF SIL MARIA (2014), in PERSONAL SHOPPER, the latter is elevated to the sole leading status, plays an American girl Maureen in Paris, she is the titular personal shopper of Kyra (Waldstätten), a well- minted celebrity figure. It is a dream job for fashion-and-ego oriented girls who cannot afford the luxury but are vouchsafed to luxuriate in it as a surrogate shopper (and get well paid), by dint of high-end dress sense. But, Stewart, who emanates a distinctly counter-consumerism flair in her androgynous mien and dress-down spontaneity, takes the offer with defiant nonchalance, because Maureen hates it, not only because Kyra is an impersonal monster, but in a more personal note, she is repelled by the nature of her vocation. A theme being predictably provoked when she is abetted by eponymous messages sent to her cellphone: Does she want to become a different person? Simply by donning those haute couture (a conspicuously vain idea of identity shifting), Maureen is tempted, tried, but eventually she thinks better of it.

So, the glamorous job is merely to defray her rent, the main reason of Maureen's drawn-out sojourn in Paris is a highly psychic one, she shares the same congenital heart problem with her twin brother Lewis, who passed away several months ago here, professing both are endowed with a medium's made-up, and a promise to contact each other from beyond whoever dies first, she is waiting, seeking, for a sign, a signal (from Lewis) and a closure (for herself), and the wait extends while many parapsychic phenomena transpire around an increasingly jittery Maureen, including the said messages, are they from Lewis, or has she been driven to such a state that she would like to will herself to believe they are from Lewis? In due course, she would be implicated in a grisly murder, and eventually (spoilers alert), the story is puckishly topped of with yawning evasion, in the middle-east Oman, but the revelation somewhat leaves some splashes to impel viewers to examine inwardly the notion of ghost and spirit, preferably with an idealistic methodology, not dissimilar with the mystic vanishing of Stewart's character in CoSM.

Spiritualism's correlation with technology is a scintillating proposition Assayas assuredly propounds but seems to fumble for a clear answer, instead he dishes out Hilma af Kint's abstract art and Victor Hugo's séance video-clip (from a fictitious TV movie) to (nominally) ginger up the intrigue, insofar as he even confects gimmicks from horror genre, a visible ghost disgorging ectoplasm, or a blink-and-you-will-miss-it apparition materializes itself in the background during an overtly extended long take focusing on Maureen. Those moments, may contradict Assayas' preordained tack of straddling the issue, but are effective attention-stealers one might think Assayas wouldn't deign to conduct at any rate, we all love surprises, don't we?

Still, PERSONAL SHOPPER is an empath's self-reliant rite-of-passage to bring down the curtain on a bereavement, on top of which Assayas grafts his sortie in psychological horror, affixed with a tangy criticism towards the glitter and vacuousness of consumerism, not a bad combo at all, if, you are not galled by an open-ended denouement staring squarely at your face.

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7 /10

Worth a watch for some, especially if you're a Kristen Stewart fan.

'PERSONAL SHOPPER': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

A supernatural/psychological thriller about a celebrity's personal assistant, and shopper, that's desperately trying to make contact with her recently deceased twin brother. The movie stars Kristen Stewart, and it was written and directed by Olivier Assayas (the two previously worked together on 2014's 'CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA'). It also costars Nora von Waldstätten, Lars Eidinger, Sigrid Bouaziz, Anders Danielsen Lie and Ty Olwin. The film was well received at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered, and it's also gotten mostly positive reviews from critics. I found it to be interesting, and well made mostly, but nothing special or memorable really.

Maureen (Stewart) works as a personal assistant for a celebrity named Kyra (Waldstätten). Her job mostly consists of traveling to European capitols, in order to shop for Kyra (by trying on different clothes, shoes and jewelry for her). Maureen secretly dresses in these expensive (recently purchased) clothes as well, when she's alone at night. She also continuously tries to contact her recently deceased twin brother, because before he died they both promised each other they would try to make contact with one other, from the afterlife (if there is one). Maureen is also harassed by persistent texts from an unknown number, who she thinks might be the spirit of her dead brother.

The movie is somewhat interesting, but it's also really slow-paced. It also seems severely unbalanced as well, with the supernatural elements seeming somewhat out of place (with the rest of the story) too. Stewart is really good in the lead role, but her character is the only relatable, or likable, one in the whole movie. I think the film was well directed, and the story is at least somewhat interesting too. It's definitely worth a watch for some, especially if you're a Kristen Stewart fan.

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1 /10

my notes

One of the worst movies i've ever seen. probably the number one most boring movie i've ever seen. i don't know why i finished it. it was never intriguing. i started watching it fast like 20 minutes in, and watched the entire last 40 minutes at 2x speed. there was a 15 minute sequence of her texting back and forth with someone. no joke, with no other dialogue, just the texts. and then more throughout the movie. i wanted to cry from how boring it was (1 viewing)

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5 /10

Impenetrable

You might assume a film called 'Personal Shopper' would be a chick-lit inspired rom-com; instead, the protagonist in Olivier Assayas's film does indeed have that job, but she's also in communication with a mysterious stalker and her dead brother's ghost. I generally like Assayas's style, and the film proceeds with a realistic feel, but in consequence it also makes little sense, working neither as horror nor as a convincing portrait of a young woman losing her mind. The film has a certain resemblance to the director's previous 'Clouds of Sils Maria', but sadly without that movie's underlying intelligence and substance.

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8 /10

conversations with the world of the dead

'Personal Shopper' (Best Director award at Cannes in 2016 tied with Cristian Mungiu's 'Graduation') is the second collaboration between the French director Olivier Assayas and American actress Kristen Stewart after the excellent 'Clouds of Sils Maria' released in 2014. I liked their first film more, but without a doubt 'Personal Shopper' is a very interesting film, one of those movies that can lead to very different and extreme reactions. Some viewers will disregard it from the start for his belonging to the genre of ghost movies that they cannot take seriously. Others will be fascinated by the complexity of the story and the ambiguous and open approach, open to multiple interpretations. The blogs and discussion groups of the thriller and horror enthusiasts are full of passionate debates, analyzes and theories about what viewers saw on screen. Most viewers will find many reasons for satisfaction in a film in which the details require constant attention. It's one of the few movies I'd like to see again right after watching it. But there are also enough disappointed viewers, and those who follow the viewers comments on IMDB will also find several 1 grades. The least numerous are, I think, the viewers who will remain indifferent after watching.

How you perceive this film as viewers depends on the extent to which you believe in spiritism and other means of communication with those who have crossed the threshold of death, or at least you are prepared to accept them as a premise for thriller, horror, or ghost movies. The main heroine named Maureen (Kristen Stewart) is a young American whose twin brother, Lewis, died a few months ago due to a heart defect, which she also suffers from and which endangers her at any time. The two siblings had spiritualistic abilities and had promised that in the event of the death of one of them, the departed would send a sign to the survivor. The film tells the story of the waiting for this sign by Maureen, who lives in Paris as a personal shopper, a.k.a. shopping assistant for luxury toilets and jewelry of a star. How will this sign come about? By the classical methods of spiritualism used already by Victor Hugo during his exile on the island of Jersey in the 19th century? Maybe through the beautiful objects (clothes, jewelry) purchased by Maureen for her employer or through art, as the painter Hilma af Klimt, the pioneer of abstract art, did at the beginning of the 20th century? Or, if we are in the 21st century, through iPhone messaging?

The story gathers enough complexity for an interesting thriller, including a corpse and situations in which our heroine risks becoming a murder suspect or even a victim. I will not reveal more because almost everything I tell risks being a spoiler, and the film is interesting enough to offer reasons of interest to amateurs of various genres. A second theme of the film is the difficulty of communication, not only with those in the other world but also with those around us. Maureen hardly exchanges a word with her mistress. Communicating with anonymous people on the Internet is an alternative that is proving to be very dangerous. In my opinion, Kristen Stewart's performance is outstanding, a combination of vulnerability and determination, between involvement and the search for communication with the world beyond. The cinematography is also exceptional. Some of the scenes filmed in the abandoned house where the missing brother had lived are illuminated in such a way that the color palette is almost completely reduced to black and white, as a tribute to the classics of the horror genre. The streets of Paris and London bring us back to a reality that should assure us, but which instead only increases our worries. The soundtrack also contributes to this effect. Some scenes include windows, which makes us constantly wonder where they open. Some overly obvious 'ghostly' effects could have been avoided, but overall the film looks great visually. I recommend watching. One more thing. I believe that 'Personal Shopper' is a movie whose status has good chances to grow over time. Some of the viewers risk being already absorbed in the fan discussion forums about the significance of what they have seen on the screen.

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5 /10

It simply doesn't know what it wants to be.

The picture's main problem is that it simply doesn't know what it wants to be, leading to a number of plot strands and genre cues that feel as though they aim to carry the rest of the narrative but then just fizzle away, almost as quickly as they arrived, with little to no consequences. The end result is a highly unfocused piece that bounces around between story points without ever really connecting the dots, fluttering from a character-based ghost story to a pseudo psycho-sexual thriller and back again, to the point where even a major murder mystery seems inconsequential. There are also a few plot pretensions in 'Personal Shopper (2016)' that are simply pretentious, serving only to add confusion rather than mystery, and the flick finishes ten minutes too late to be anything other than annoying (seriously, the perfect enigmatic ending happens and then the film just carries on). It also frustratingly treats its supernatural elements as ambiguous when we have been overtly shown them several times before, so - despite a few decently compelling sequences - the overall experience sadly falls pretty flat. 5/10

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Fascinating

I think the best thing that one can say about this film is that there's really no guessing where it's going to go, or even, what's going on at any current moment. It makes sense on a purely surface level, but as to what's actually going on is a bit hard to discern. There will be quite a lot of people who don't like this film, possible due to a combination of its pacing and where it eventually goes. I think it's a good mix of horror/drama with a dose of sentimentality. It's definitely not an easy film to categorize. It's a good thing Stewart is able to carry the film quite well.

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7 /10

Warning: Spoilers

Very deep movie about life, what happens after life, what we're doing with our life. Actress like always on high level. Very convincing,strongly engaged with her character she's creating. Film wasn't very easy to watch because it's not one of the Hollywood b........ When the movie ends you're still asking yourself questions like who killed that famous woman? Did she got connect with her dead brother? What really happens after life. Amazing movie.

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