Personal Shopper

By Gopitha Kiribandara

A raw, intimately shot movie about a woman who starts communicating with ghosts.

Personal Shopper is director Olivier Assayas’ attempt to deconstruct the psyche of a lonely woman who starts receiving messages from an unnatural  source. Starring Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Nora von Waldstätten, Anders Danielsen Lie and Pascal Rambert among others, the film received positive reviews bagging Assayas the best Director Award for his trouble at the Cannes Film Festival 2016.

Personal Shopper is a modern take on the gothic horror story of the 1900s; for instance, the director may have replaced the horse drawn carriages with modern transportation, but essentially, the premise of creepy storytelling remains the same. The plot of the movie is largely inconsequential; the film doesn’t move in a linear narrative, instead it showcases development of character. The piece is decidedly moody as it showcases Maureen’s drab existence, as she picks clothes for a celebrity client; but deep within her mind she suffers from a thirst to know the beyond.  Maureen’s real aim is to contact her twin brother who died of a congenital heart defect that she shares. As she receives a series of texts from an unknown number, Maureen lives two lives, and the one she shares with the world couldn’t present a starker contrast to her true existence.

Though the film is told in chronological order, making sense of it feels like an uphill task. Strands of subplot weave in and out but are never consistently explained away in a linear fashion.  The camera skirts around like a predator as it creates a sense of the eerie and foreboding. The doom and gloom atmosphere is effective despite its unconventional usage, and the dialogue is precise and to the point. The highlight of Personal Shopper is of course Stewarts inspired performance. She focuses on the little things – the shifting fingers, a well placed cough – are just enough to suggest that all is not well with her. Stewart dominates the screen for a majority of Personal Shopper, which has both a positive and negative effects; a good actress, she is able to hold the attention of the audience with her seemingly weak exterior, revealing just enough of the torment that lies within her to earn the viewer’s interest. While the movie may not hit the spot with younger viewers, a more mature audience will fully appreciate the film.