Director Olivier Assayas reunites with star Kristen Stewart for Personal Shopper, after the success of The Clouds of Sils Maria a couple of years ago. Personal Shopper has not been so well received and I can understand why. My feelings after watching it are the two hours passed by quickly, and I was certainly never bored, but it is an easy film to pick holes in retrospectively.
Stewart stars as Maureen Cartwright, a young woman living in Paris who wants to be an artist but is making a living as a personal shopper to a rich and famous woman. When Maureen starts to receive mysterious messages on her phone from someone who appears to be watching her, she becomes involved in a cat-and-mouse game that ends in murder. At the same time, she is grieving for the loss of her young brother. She tries to make contact with him as he promised to send her a sign to confirm he is okay in the afterlife.
Stewart is magnificent in the lead role, bringing a complex character to life and making a number of unlikely scenes totally believable. However, it has to be said that this feels like two separate films melded together, and the two story lines never really gel. Although, not highly original, the murder plot worked much better for me. The tension builds well and Assayas manages to make an extended sequence involving Maureen texting her stalker on a train into something really gripping.
In the end, neither plot line is fully resolved and that will leave you either frustrated or intrigued.
Rating: 7 out of 10