I like a good ghost story. More than that, as I have said before, I love film that I can turn into a date night. My girlfriend and I can’t get enough of Kristen Stewart. We don’t always agree on films as a whole (see: never), but there is something special about certain actors performances, regardless of the genre, that we just can’t help checking out their latest big screen event. Stewart is some kind of acting anomaly to the both us. Her work and fame are as confusing as it is interesting. Since her stint in the Twilight series, we have put every acting decision she makes under a microscope because everything about it just feels off. The stuttering, wide-eyed gawking, face touching, heavy breathing madness of it all is just to much to ignore. So, without delay, we queued up for her latest release; a french produced ghost story called Personal Shopper, which obviously sounds like she is either doing personal shopping for ghosts who just can’t find the time, or the ghost used to be a personal shopper and died on the job. Not quite, but close!

Only the French could make a ghost story that involves vogue, couture, and personal shopping in Paris. The plot follows Maureen (Kristen Stewart), a twin survived after the sudden death of her brother Lewis. Maureen is stuck between her job as a personal shopper for the entitled supermodel Kyra (Nora von Waldstätten) and her boyfriend’s desire for her to move on with her life and join him abroad. In the middle of all of this is a promise she made with her brother. She and her brother were both competent mediums and the promise was that whoever died first would stick around and wait for a sign that the afterlife truly existed. Lewis’ ex-girlfriend wishes to sell the house they bought together but before she can sell it, the buyers want to know if the house is haunted. Maureen believes there is a possibility that her dead brother might haunt the house, so she offers to sleep in the house to find out of this is true. So, therein lies the setup, however, director/writer Olivier Assayas deviates from the classic haunted house tale to follow the shy Maureen as she battles with her job as a personal shopper for an overbearing, distant boss and her personal fears of stepping out into the world as confidant version of herself. It’s this kind of unusual meandering that grants this overall feeling of “Frenchness”, and while the underlying plot is a ghost story, it’s really more about you haunting yourself. Along the way, she picks up a stalker, finds time to undermine her bosses wishes, and gets swept up in a game of “double dare” (not of Nickelodeon fame). As it turns out, calling this a ghost story wouldn’t really be strictly true.

This film takes its time subverting elements of a traditional ghost story in favor of character development. At a certain point you are no longer wondering where Maureen might be going, but what path she might take to get there and what she might see on the way. While I am no expert on French cinema, (I can probably count all of the French films I have seen on my fingers,) it does bear regard to the idea one might have of French culture. That by and large the backbone of the story is just the broad strokes, and the details are in watching the character grow through the many interactions they have as they transcend their former selves. We walk away from our haunted house and discover how much scarier the world of the living can be. This is probably the strongest feature of the film, because there is no indication as to how far or where it will go. It is a foreign concept to big screen blockbusters like the Marvel films. What if Spider-Man started with Peter defeating the bad guy and spent the remainder of the film discovering the horrors of honors math and an alcoholic aunt who sells her body to pay their rent.

This wasn’t the film I expected, but it was better for it. Kristen Stewart was still every bit the actress she has always been, a bundle of neurotic beauty. She might even be pushing the envelope further by taking some pointers from her onscreen male mirror and co-star Jesse Eisenberg from their performance in the action-comedy American Ultra (2015). Nevertheless, its fitting. This actually feels like the entire film was written specifically for her. It might as well have been a documentary of her life in an alternate universe. It would be somewhat felicitous if she were a medium in another life. Director Assayas takes the long way around to make his point, but perhaps it only feels that way because it appears so abnormal. The film is a bit slow, taking time to breath in some static scenery here and there, but it remains compelling throughout. Not your average ghost story, but as far as I can tell, the French (and Stewart) are anything but.

~* 7/10 *~

P.S. –A warning, or maybe an amorous wink, there is a fair amount of sexy solo screen time starring Kristen Stewart. And it’s not for nothing, so not entirely out of left field, but for some reason, like everything else in Personal Shopper, I didn’t expect it.