I went to see “Personal Shopper” for one reason only and that was to catch up with the critics who have been raving about Kristen Stewart’s performances in her independent films. I believe I saw her in one of the “Twilight” movies and I was impressed with her performance in “Still Alice” but I had to go to Wikipedia to see what other movies she had been in and they listed 2 movies I had seen, “Panic” and “Café Society” only vaguely remembering her in the latter.

The title of the film is Maureen’s (Stewart) job description for a celebrity Kyra (Nora von Waldstatten) who can’t go out without being mobbed. Maureen believes she has paranormal powers as a medium as did her twin brother Lewis who died from a condition that could also affect her eventually. The twins made a deal that whoever died first would send a ‘sign’ from ‘the otherside’.

We meet others along the way from Kyra’s lover of 2 years, Lewis’s widow, Maureen’s boyfriend and others but none have almost as much screen time as her iPhone except, possibly, the various laptop computers which are all around.

Kristen Stewart dominates the movie whether texting, traveling on trains between Paris and London or motoring around Paris on her Peugeot scooter, being topless for one reason or another and trying to communicate with her brother or being pursued by a mysterious stranger, possibly from ‘beyond’ in that iPhone.

Stewart’s face implies more than her words and she easily makes her character believable but I am on the fence regarding her appeal as an actress which in this case may be due, partially, to her director Olivier Assayas. In their first picture together, “Clouds of Sils Maria”, he and the cast received rave reviews and Stewart was the first American to win the French’s Cesar Award for Best Supporting Actress but I don’t see his touch here. In fact, a few scenes that should have had the audience jumping out of their seats, gets very little reaction. Neither does he, or the sound editor, do their job when it comes to the French subtitles or level of some English lines important to the film.

“Personal Shopper” did get me interested in Kristen Stewart but at this point not enough to make me go see her future films if there are other films in theatres at the same time that I would like to see for one reason or another.

 

 

“Personal Shopper” trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSqMpkGOW9g