PERSONAL SHOPPER
Director: Olivier Assayas
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Sigrid Bouaziz, Anders Danielsen Lie
Rating: (M)
Four stars (out of five)
While about as far removed from that franchise’s corny teen formula as is possible, French auteur Olivier Assayas has created, for his 15th feature, a genre-hopping work of technophobia and existential yearning that slowly and steadily layers on the creepy before reaching a superbly ambiguous and hair-prickling finale.
It’s not surprising that the crowd at Cannes both booed and gave this a four and a-half minute standing ovation; it will strongly divide audiences. Personally, with a few reservations, I loved it.
Stewart plays Maureen, an American living in Paris and working impassively as a personal assistant to a demanding and mostly unseen diva.
Maureen also has some psychic ability, dabbling as a medium, and has come to Paris to commune with the spirit of her twin brother who recently died there from a genetic heart condition and had promised to contact her after his passing.
Strange messages start to appear on her phone, but are they coming from beyond or is someone else stalking her on the earthly plane? A stunning sequence, occurring midway, that consists of little more than an extended dialogue by text, is one of the film’s many suspenseful pleasures of which Hitchcock would be proud.
- Jeremy Quinn
