Personal Shopper is one of those movies I’m not sure I understood, but which was nevertheless profound. It didn’t help that it was one of those “free with commercials” movies that interrupted a dense storyline just when I needed to be concentrating. How did we ever survive growing up with commercial television as our main vehicle for movies? This is a subtle, psychological ghost story set mainly in Paris and involving a young woman, Maureen, who is the titular personal shopper, but who stays in Paris to try to contact her fraternal twin brother’s ghost. Her dead brother’s widow is helping her, but the wealthy woman for whom Maureen’s the personal shopper is demanding and has strict rules about how her expensive clothing and accessories are to be handled.
The film is moody in the way that I find effective, and it’s not fast-paced and full of action. It’s more contemplative and a couple of plots are woven together so that I suspect I’ll need to see it again to try to fit it all together. It’s also a movie that intertwines religion with horror. In this case the religion is primarily Spiritualism. Maureen, in addition to being a personal shopper, is a medium like her brother was. Before he died he promised, like Houdini did, that he would try to return and leave a sign so that Maureen would know for sure about the afterlife. She has glimpses of a spirit entity, but isn’t sure it’s him. Meanwhile, her boss’s lover scams Maureen into believing he’s a ghost by texting her cryptic messages from an unknown number.
There’s no question, following the straight narrative of the film, that there are ghosts. What’s uncertain is who they are and whether they can be trusted to reveal the truth. Mostly shot in autumnal Paris, the gray skies and threat of rain complement the eerie feeling the story generates. It ends in sun-drenched Oman, however, making for a stark contrast with what has gone before. If my description here is confusing take that as a sign of the depth of this film. (Or simply judge me a poor writer.) In either case, Personal Shopper, which was recommended to me, is a movie that hangs on after it’s over, leaving you wondering about any number of things. The acting is compelling and there’s a melancholy about the movie that’s rare but also becoming. I’ll need to see this again some rainy day, hopefully without commercials this time.
