Kristen Stewart grapples with malevolent spirits in Personal Shopper
REVIEW: Kristen Stewart is spooked by the ghost of her twin brother in Personal Shopper, her second outing with French film director Oliver Assayas.
PERSONAL SHOPPER
Three stars
Director Oliver Assayas
Starring Kristen Stewart
Rating MA15+
Running time 105min
Verdict Ghost story apparates
MALEVOLENT spirits, ill-tempered fashion divas, the Paris traffic ... Kristen Stewart has many obstacles to overcome in her second film with French director Oliver Assayas (Clouds of Sils Maria).
But it’s the line “she vomited some ectoplasm and left” that ultimately brings her unstuck.
Not many actors could deliver a piece of dialogue like that while still breathing. And Stewart certainly can’t.
Assayas might have written this ghost story for his androgynous American muse, but the role somewhat paradoxically draws attention to Stewart’s limitations as an actor.
When used well (I nto the Wild, Still Alice, Café Society), she’s an arresting screen presence.
But the flatness of Stewart’s intonation works against her in this film, as does the self-consciousness of her body language — in stark contrast to the pair’s previous collaboration, for which the actress won a Caesar (the French Oscar) for her supporting performance opposite Juliette Binoche.
Maureen Cartwright (Stewart) is the personal shopper of the title — an occupation that mainly involves navigating Paris’s narrow streets on her moped, picking up expensive items from high-end fashion designers for her boss to wear to high-profile openings, and dropping them off at the apartment in neatly-packed garment bags.
Cartwright has little time for her moody, entitled employer but the job pays the rent while she remains in Paris to fulfil her promise to her late twin brother.
“I’m a medium. He was a medium,” she explains at one point in the film.
Cartwright made a pact with Lewis, who died from the congenital heart defect she has also inherited, to stay in his adopted city long enough to allow him to make contact with her from the afterlife.
To this end, she spends nights alone in the sprawling, rundown house he was renovating with his French partner (Sigrid Bouaziz).
But instead of her sibling, Cartwright encounters a terrifying female spectre.
Soon afterwards, she begins to receive creepy anonymous texts (that may or may not be coming from the beyond) encouraging her to indulge her secret desires.
In an unnerving sequence that recalls Jean Genet’s The Maids, Cartwright gives in to the illicit impulse to dress up in her employer’s outfits — which looks bad when her employer is found gruesomely murdered.
Assayas is clearly fascinated by the Twilight star, and director and star share the sort of intense, creative spark that encourages their audience to stay the distance.
They aren’t rewarded. Personal Shopper winds up going nowhere.
***Personal Shopper opens Thursday
Originally published as Kristen Stewart grapples with malevolent spirits in Personal Shopper