Many horror movies begin the same way: a couple moves into a new house, feels something supernatural there, and sees or hears ghosts in the middle of the night. Maybe one person is convinced that there's a spirit and the other one is more skeptical or they're both on board, but either way, this kind of scary movie is fairly common. Some are more well-crafted than others, but most of the time, a horror or thriller film about ghosts can be a bit boring.
Kristen Stewart has had a fascinating career, moving on from becoming famous for playing Bella in Twilight to more artistic films, and her 2016 thriller Personal Shopper is a gem. As Maureen Cartwright, a young woman who misses her brother who passed away and left her feeling lonely and lost, Stewart helps tell a new ghost story that is fantastic.
When people think about films telling stories about ghosts, they imagine movies about haunted houses and characters attempting to solve the puzzle of an angry spirit so they can live comfortably in the house or move on with their lives. Personal Shopper delves heavily into a young woman dealing with grief after her brother Lewis died. Because Lewis knew that he had a health issue with his heart and that he would die, he told Maureen that he would signal to her that he was a ghost and that she would know it was him. Personal Shopper does something much differently from other ghost stories: it features a main character who actually wants to believe that spirits are real. Most of the time, a protagonist will be absolutely terrified of the house that they just moved into, and they want the weird things to stop happening. In Maureen's case, she wishes that she could hear or see Lewis's ghost, and she'll take anything that he wants to give her.
Just like the 2020 horror film Come Play uses technology, as a child is haunted by a monster in his smartphone's app, Personal Shopper allows Maureen to think about whether ghosts could be real because she thinks that her dead brother is texting her. Maureen starts getting many messages on her phone and while most people would be creeped out by this, Maureen welcomes it because she thinks that it's Lewis.
Personal Shopper is one of Kristen Stewart's best movies and a solid ghost story in another way: because audiences aren't sure if Lewis is really talking to Maureen or if Maureen just wants this to be true. At the end of the film, Maureen hears a knock and inquires if it's Lewis. She hears a sound again, believing that he is communicating with her, and yet she's not sure if he means well or not. Maureen is having a tough time, working as a personal shopper for a model named Kyra (Nora Waldstätten) and trying to find some contentment while wondering how she can make it without her brother.
At the beginning of the movie, Maureen is in Lewis's house because she wants to see or hear his ghost. She does see something that definitely looks like some kind of spirit, but it's most likely not Lewis. Maureen's drawings are also ruined and the bathroom tap turns on, which makes her wonder if the presence is friendly and kind or not. By the time that Maureen realizes that Lewis hasn't been texting her, it's heartbreaking as she had really wanted to connect with her brother again. But she seems ready for this news as receiving these text messages helped her grieving process.
Personal Shopper has an unsettling tone and makes audiences feel a terrible sense of dread. It's hard not to watch it and feel creeped out and like there really could be a presence lurking in the same room. Maureen learns that Kyra's lover Ingo (Lars Eidinger) murdered Kyra, which is definitely scary, and she thinks that Ingo was texting her as well. This is brilliant as there's a real, logical explanation for the events of the story, and yet Maureen is still grasping at the idea that her brother has been talking to her.
Thrillers that play with reality are often the most successful. While Personal Shopper doesn't have any cool plot twists in the movie's second act, it does keep audiences guessing and hanging on. Kristen Stewart is perfect as a grieving sister and by the film's end, audiences want Lewis's ghost to be real as much as she does. The movie suggests that Maureen will be hoping to hear from Lewis her entire life, as this is a comfort to her, and if this enables her to truly move on, there doesn't seem to be any harm.