Personal ShopperGrief makes us all into ghosts. Personal Shopper is a psychological horror movie about a young woman named Maureen Cartwright (Kristen Stewart) who is both a spiritual medium and the personal shopper for an uptight fashion model named Kyra Gellman (Nora Waldstätten). Maureen is still grieving over the death of her twin brother, Lewis, who passed away due to a genetic heart condition. Worried that she might be susceptible to the same condition, Maureen is "waiting" in Paris (where Lewis died) and seeing a doctor to check on her health. But what she claims that she is really waiting for is a sign that Lewis is alright...one from beyond the grave.
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Many films written and directed by Olivier Assayas (like Personal Shopper) are often described as a "slow burn". In the case of this film, this is best represented by how Maureen goes through various stages of grief, and how enigmatic this side of her and other aspects of the plot are revealed. From the start, there is no context for Maureen's visit to Lewis's old house. His surviving girlfriend, Lara (Sigrid Bouaziz), drives Maureen out to a remote house in the woods, where she stays overnight. Names have not yet been shared; all that we know is that Lara says that she doesn't intend to stay with Maureen because it is too painful for her. Why? We'll come back to that; in the mean time, Maureen walks through this barren house. Floor boards creak. There is no lighting other than the natural light that comes through the windows. The camera tracks her through the house, following her, watching her inspect the home--like a ghost might. In the middle of the night, she stalks through the gloom and mutters some words as though speaking to someone. There is a faint blur near her, behind her. Is it a trick of the faint moonlight trickling into the house, or is it a ghost? The next day, Maureen, Lara, and a pair of potential buyers of the house speak about how Maureen believed that she felt a "presence", and it is here that Personal Shopper reveals to us that she is a "medium", someone who can detect spirits. She says that she needs "more time" to fully evaluate the presence. Over coffee and small talk, the name of an artist is shared with her--Hilma af Klint--who was regarded as a progenitor of abstract art and also reportedly drew inspiration from spirits. Later, Maureen flips through an art book she ordered of Hilma af Klint's in her cozy apartment after a tiring day of buying high-end fashion for Kyra and slyly incorporating it into the rest of her wardrobe at her much fancier apartment. This is how Assayas avoids the tiring trend of some movies of trying to establish who a character is before the plot moves forward. Instead, he prefers to view Maureen like one of the ghosts which seem to haunt her--from afar--just as we do, learning about her as the movie continues through her actions. This makes Maureen the real mystery of Personal Shopper. We are left asking ourselves questions about her--her motivations, her history, her health, her mood, her relationship with Lewis, and so on. The ghosts become background in Personal Shopper, while in most other psychological horror movies they would drive the plot. This creates a refreshing reversal on the genre, and allows for the ghost story to extend outside of the confines of a haunted house or some other plot device contrived for no other purpose than to just drive that story forward.
As each layer of Maureen's personality is peeled away, more is revealed about the profoundness of her grief, even if the movie remains murky about why her grief so substantially. People like Kyra's soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, Ingo (Lars Eidinger), ask her what she is doing in Paris, and she replies that she is "waiting". She adds that she is waiting for a "sign" from Lewis, but is this really true? Maureen is scared and it shows. She is withdrawn, cynical, nervous, and not just because she can see ghosts; she is "haunted" on a more personal level. Although the specter that haunts Lewis's country estate isn't his ghost, Maureen still hopes that she will get something from him that he is alright in the afterlife. There are numerous moments that could qualify as a sign from Lewis, but Maureen constantly refuses to acknowledge them as originating from him. In the case of the house, she is probably correct, but who can say for sure? Maybe Lewis thought that turning on faucets would be enough for her to move on with her life and stop fixating on him. But in the last couple of scenes in Personal Shopper, there is more than sufficient evidence to suggest that if Lewis is a spirit trying to reach out to Maureen, that he has offered a sign, even if that sign is vague, and Assayas's direction supports this. But no matter what "signs" come, Maureen refuses to believe that it is Lewis, right up to the end. Is it true that it really isn't Lewis, that it is Maureen who is manifesting this phenomena? Does it matter? Perhaps after Maureen realizes that her grief has led her into some traumatic live events, yes it does matter. The most telling exchange in Personal Shopper comes after Kyra has tasked Maureen to take a train to London to pick up some dresses. She gets a text from an unknown number, someone who asks her increasingly personal questions and indicates that he or she may be watching her. Maureen looks around, threatens to block the sender, and so on...but ultimately continues the exchange. Why? Because Maureen is desperate for some kind of acknowledgement, be it a sense of genuine accomplishment (which she doesn't get with her job) or an acknowledgement of her pain, which lingers like a chronic malaise. She runs the gamut of emotions to and from her sojourn to London, texting this stranger with ever more revealing messages. But most important, she asks this stranger if he is Lewis, and there is a pregnant pause. Maureen is using this series of texts to extricate the pain and frustration she is feeling--feelings of loneliness, uselessness, and loss. She is more revealing to this stranger than her own boyfriend, Gary (Ty Olwin), on their video chats, or even with Lara. Ironically, one of the more vulnerable conversations in Personal Shopper is one that Maureen has with another stranger named Erwin (Anders Danielsen Lie), once just a friend of Lewis and Lara, now her new boyfriend. Like a surrogate for Lewis, he tries to quell the storm of grief within her with kind words while revealing his own doubts and insecurities about stepping into Lewis's shoes. Maureen is not the one who is most vulnerable here. In fact, she often masks her own vulnerability, even though that mask is always threatening to fall away under the weight of her sorrow. This is why the ending of Personal Shopper is crucial. She is doing everything she can to strip away the distraction of Paris so that she can break free from her grief and see how it has altered her worldview for herself.
Recommended for: Fans of a gripping thriller that uses the premise of a ghost story to look deeper into the psyche of a woman troubled by existential angst and despair. Personal Shopper tells its story in a somewhat unorthodox fashion, but this adds richness in understanding the protagonist in a way that few psychological thrillers dare to attempt.
As each layer of Maureen's personality is peeled away, more is revealed about the profoundness of her grief, even if the movie remains murky about why her grief so substantially. People like Kyra's soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, Ingo (Lars Eidinger), ask her what she is doing in Paris, and she replies that she is "waiting". She adds that she is waiting for a "sign" from Lewis, but is this really true? Maureen is scared and it shows. She is withdrawn, cynical, nervous, and not just because she can see ghosts; she is "haunted" on a more personal level. Although the specter that haunts Lewis's country estate isn't his ghost, Maureen still hopes that she will get something from him that he is alright in the afterlife. There are numerous moments that could qualify as a sign from Lewis, but Maureen constantly refuses to acknowledge them as originating from him. In the case of the house, she is probably correct, but who can say for sure? Maybe Lewis thought that turning on faucets would be enough for her to move on with her life and stop fixating on him. But in the last couple of scenes in Personal Shopper, there is more than sufficient evidence to suggest that if Lewis is a spirit trying to reach out to Maureen, that he has offered a sign, even if that sign is vague, and Assayas's direction supports this. But no matter what "signs" come, Maureen refuses to believe that it is Lewis, right up to the end. Is it true that it really isn't Lewis, that it is Maureen who is manifesting this phenomena? Does it matter? Perhaps after Maureen realizes that her grief has led her into some traumatic live events, yes it does matter. The most telling exchange in Personal Shopper comes after Kyra has tasked Maureen to take a train to London to pick up some dresses. She gets a text from an unknown number, someone who asks her increasingly personal questions and indicates that he or she may be watching her. Maureen looks around, threatens to block the sender, and so on...but ultimately continues the exchange. Why? Because Maureen is desperate for some kind of acknowledgement, be it a sense of genuine accomplishment (which she doesn't get with her job) or an acknowledgement of her pain, which lingers like a chronic malaise. She runs the gamut of emotions to and from her sojourn to London, texting this stranger with ever more revealing messages. But most important, she asks this stranger if he is Lewis, and there is a pregnant pause. Maureen is using this series of texts to extricate the pain and frustration she is feeling--feelings of loneliness, uselessness, and loss. She is more revealing to this stranger than her own boyfriend, Gary (Ty Olwin), on their video chats, or even with Lara. Ironically, one of the more vulnerable conversations in Personal Shopper is one that Maureen has with another stranger named Erwin (Anders Danielsen Lie), once just a friend of Lewis and Lara, now her new boyfriend. Like a surrogate for Lewis, he tries to quell the storm of grief within her with kind words while revealing his own doubts and insecurities about stepping into Lewis's shoes. Maureen is not the one who is most vulnerable here. In fact, she often masks her own vulnerability, even though that mask is always threatening to fall away under the weight of her sorrow. This is why the ending of Personal Shopper is crucial. She is doing everything she can to strip away the distraction of Paris so that she can break free from her grief and see how it has altered her worldview for herself.
Recommended for: Fans of a gripping thriller that uses the premise of a ghost story to look deeper into the psyche of a woman troubled by existential angst and despair. Personal Shopper tells its story in a somewhat unorthodox fashion, but this adds richness in understanding the protagonist in a way that few psychological thrillers dare to attempt.