Personal Shopper

Personal Shopper

I saw this movie a few days ago and have been haunted by it ever since. I am writing this review more to clarify my own thoughts and feelings rather than to try and influence anyone to see (or not see) it. I have always believed the sexiest/most compelling thing about a woman is her confidence, and, for me, Personal Shopper is the cinematic equivalent of that belief. I cannot remember ever seeing a movie so supremely confident in itself, which kept my eyes glued to the screen wanting to know more. Director Olivier Assayas managed to create a film that is so sure of itself it defies all genres, conventions, and expectations. He found a perfect balance between not caring what the audience thinks about his movie without alienating or insulting his audience with how much he doesn't care. No emotional manipulation or trying to cater to/please the widest possible audience here, which is so very refreshing. This is what he has to say. Take it or leave it. Love it or hate it. So, while it is not the best movie I have ever seen and has it's flaws, I am still giving it a very high rating for daring to be different. On a side note, taste in movies is extremely subjective, so I can understand and respect the reasons why other reviewers gave this movie such low ratings. However, I do not agree with the common practice of putting down other reviewers/calling them idiots for having different opinions. In a perfect world, I wish we could all just agree to disagree without being hateful/hurtful. Peace.

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source: Personal Shopper

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.

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 * 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.

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.

I had to look up online different Websites to see what people thought about the ending of this movie. I'm unconvinced. There are a lot of theories. I don't like movies that finish and you just don't know what happened. I didn't enjoy this one bit. It's dark and not meaningful. I would say: watch something else instead.

Personal Shopper is both a ghost story with bits of horror, and a mystery movie in the world of high fashion. From the same director who directed Clouds of Sils Maria, which won Kristen Stewart her coveted César award (the French equivalent of an Oscar) for best supporting actress, comes a movie about Kristen Stewart, a medium who lives in France as a personal shopper for a famous model. She is living in Paris because her brother recently died there and she is trying to communicate with him. Both supernatural and psychological, this movie, surprisingly, had me at the edge of my seat. Kristin Stewart was a standout in this film. As much as I don't like her, she is continuing to grow on me every time I see her in something that isn't Twilight. Most of the movie is of her just alone and that is the sense that is given to you. She is alone in Paris trying to deal with the grief and loss of her brother all the while working for a woman she does not like at all. The script is perfect for Kristen and some of her strange acting like being jittery or aloof is perfect for this role as a skeptical medium. There was not a lot of sound used in the film when it comes to a score but when the music plays it really enhances the film. There are also a lot of fade out scenes that is not something you often see but enhanced the mystery of the movie as it seemed like a lot of questions were going unanswered. There is also a lot of texting in the movie between Kristen and an unknown person who at the end of the film will have you wondering who exactly it was. This was brilliant in many regards to show how alone she was and also how much of communication is done over text these days. What I really enjoyed about this movie is while it was very artsy, it was not afraid to get spooky. There are some scenes with ghosts that are very horrifying but are played for the sake of the story and not at all for sight scares. There are only a few ghost scenes as well and by the end of the movie I was clamoring for more but happy that they didn't over stay their welcome. This was a great movie and I would recommend to anyone who is a fan of Kristen Stewart or of mystery movies. It's also a good flick for supernatural fans or fans of mediums, art, and Paris.