Personal Shopper (2017)

I normally like when arthouse touches on horror but this piece of crap didn't do anything for me. Neither as a drama nor a genrefilm. And the 30 minute scene of Kirsten Stewart texting is by far the most laughable non-cinematic experience I've ever had. The director needs o go back to film school.

...even the sight of Kristin "Twilight" Stewart in a faux-bondage corset (with and without brassiere) is not enough to motivate me to ever watch this Parisian travelo---sorry, I mean ghas---er, I mean ghostly (yeah, that's it, ghostly) soporific---I mean mystery, yeah, mystery---again. Others have summarized the plot, others have critiqued Ms. Stewart's acting, others have delineated the nods to media distancing, moped riding, and cigarettes. I'm just stepping in here to let you know that you really needn't waste your time, unless it's for that brief peep at Stewart in her scanties and that kinky black corset. Horror movie? Spare me. The only horror is that large amounts of resources and human capital went into this technically accomplished yet horrendously un-involving character study. Ms. Stewart's studious performance simply can't recommend a dreary, unsympathetic character to my attention. She and writer/director Olivier "Clean" Assayas should have called it a day with "Clouds of Sils Maria." At least then they had Juliette Binoche in the mix.

I think the main problem with "Personal Shopper" was its insistence at shoehorning supernatural aspects into an otherwise straight story about a young woman in mourning who works on the fringes of celebrity.Or is it that they shoehorned in serious dramatic elements into an otherwise straightforward supernatural thriller?Either way, it was not a good fit. To me, the movie feels more like the first one: the pace is slow and observant of this woman and her strange job, the people around her largely distant and inaccessible. Moreover, the movie makes what I feel was a fatal error of judgment when it provides a visual depiction of a supernatural presence. For one thing, the effect is unconvincing. But how can something like that look "realistic"? Put it in a slow, realistic film that seems to be set in the pre-mourning stage for everybody concerned, and it just doesn't fit. Assayas should have kept the ghosts, if that's what they are, off-screen.What we end up with is a movie which is too slow and unwound to really capture your attention for long, and a ghost story in the background that would have been more effective if they had ditched the "personal shopper" aspect of the story and allowed that to take centre stage.Kristen Stewart, as always, plays a character who has supposedly undergone loss, but it is impossible to believe her as someone who is grief-stricken. She seems like someone who has never faced strong emotion in her life. The Gen X'ers of the '90s would have snapped her up and made her a star, if she had been around back then.

At first this movie can come over as a bit slow burner with nothing happening and a tad self indulgent in the arthouse introspective angle but stick with it to the end then you will realise you need to watch it all again and this time you will appreciate it as you solve the riddle. The performance of the lead actress is good although constrained by the introspective character. As a movie there isn't much of a story or a plot outside of the central character. As a movie its nothing special but as an entertaining riddle its actually quite clever.