Can a ghost story about a celebrity assistant redefine the modern psychological thriller?
In short: Olivier Assayas’s 2016 film Personal Shopper follows a grieving woman in Paris working as a high-end assistant while hunting for a sign from her deceased twin. Blending supernatural dread with the banality of modern tech, the film challenges genre conventions and leaves audiences divided over its haunting, ambiguous conclusion.
Maureen Cartwright, played by Kristen Stewart, navigates a lonely existence in Paris, serving as a personal shopper for a demanding supermodel named Kyra Gellman. Her life is defined by a desperate pact: she and her twin brother, Lewis, promised that whoever died first would send a signal from the afterlife. Lewis recently passed away from a genetic heart condition, leaving Maureen to search for his presence while managing the superficial demands of the fashion world.
The narrative takes a dark turn when Maureen begins receiving mysterious, suggestive text messages from an unknown sender. As she investigates, she encounters inexplicable phenomena, including levitating objects and ghostly apparitions. The film masterfully balances these supernatural elements with the grounded reality of a murder investigation, as Maureen finds her employer dead and becomes entangled in a web of suspicion involving Kyra’s lover, Ingo. By the time Maureen travels to a retreat in Oman to find closure, the line between her internal grief and external reality has blurred completely.
Upon its premiere at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, the film provoked a polarized reaction, famously being booed at an initial screening before receiving a four-and-a-half-minute standing ovation at its official debut. Director Olivier Assayas, who wrote the role specifically for Stewart following their collaboration on Clouds of Sils Maria, attributed the confusion to the film's challenging, non-traditional ending. Despite the initial friction, critics largely praised the work, with Rotten Tomatoes reporting an 81% approval rating and outlets like The Guardian awarding it a perfect score for its ability to be simultaneously terrifying and uncategorizable.
Ultimately, the film functions as a meditation on loss and the digital age. Whether the spirits Maureen encounters are real or manifestations of her own psychological fracture remains a point of debate. By juxtaposing the cold, transactional nature of her job with the profound, unanswerable questions of death, Assayas creates a sleek, suspenseful experience that flirts with the absurd while remaining deeply rooted in the ache of human heartbreak.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Personal Shopper
- Also: Wikidata — personal shopper · CC0
- Also: Wikidata — Personal Shopper · CC0
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