HOME |  CULT MOVIES | COMPETITIONS | ADVERTISE |  CONTACT US |  ABOUT US
 
 
 
Newest Reviews
American Fiction
Poor Things
Thunderclap
Zeiram
Legend of the Bat
Party Line
Night Fright
Pacha, Le
Kimi
Assemble Insert
Venus Tear Diamond, The
Promare
Beauty's Evil Roses, The
Free Guy
Huck and Tom's Mississippi Adventure
Rejuvenator, The
Who Fears the Devil?
Guignolo, Le
Batman, The
Land of Many Perfumes
Cat vs. Rat
Tom & Jerry: The Movie
Naked Violence
Joyeuses Pacques
Strangeness, The
How I Became a Superhero
Golden Nun
Incident at Phantom Hill
Winterhawk
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
Maigret Sets a Trap
B.N.A.
Hell's Wind Staff, The
Topo Gigio and the Missile War
Battant, Le
Penguin Highway
Cazadore de Demonios
Snatchers
Imperial Swordsman
Foxtrap
   
 
Newest Articles
3 From Arrow Player: Sweet Sugar, Girls Nite Out and Manhattan Baby
Little Cat Feat: Stephen King's Cat's Eye on 4K UHD
La Violence: Dobermann at 25
Serious Comedy: The Wrong Arm of the Law on Blu-ray
DC Showcase: Constantine - The House of Mystery and More on Blu-ray
Monster Fun: Three Monster Tales of Sci-Fi Terror on Blu-ray
State of the 70s: Play for Today Volume 3 on Blu-ray
The Movie Damned: Cursed Films II on Shudder
The Dead of Night: In Cold Blood on Blu-ray
Suave and Sophisticated: The Persuaders! Take 50 on Blu-ray
Your Rules are Really Beginning to Annoy Me: Escape from L.A. on 4K UHD
A Woman's Viewfinder: The Camera is Ours on DVD
Chaplin's Silent Pursuit: Modern Times on Blu-ray
The Ecstasy of Cosmic Boredom: Dark Star on Arrow
A Frosty Reception: South and The Great White Silence on Blu-ray
You'll Never Guess Which is Sammo: Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon on Blu-ray
Two Christopher Miles Shorts: The Six-Sided Triangle/Rhythm 'n' Greens on Blu-ray
Not So Permissive: The Lovers! on Blu-ray
Uncomfortable Truths: Three Shorts by Andrea Arnold on MUBI
The Call of Nostalgia: Ghostbusters Afterlife on Blu-ray
Moon Night - Space 1999: Super Space Theater on Blu-ray
Super Sammo: Warriors Two and The Prodigal Son on Blu-ray
Sex vs Violence: In the Realm of the Senses on Blu-ray
What's So Funny About Brit Horror? Vampira and Bloodbath at the House of Death on Arrow
Keeping the Beatles Alive: Get Back
   
 
  Personal Shopper Someone Is Watching Me
Year: 2016
Director: Olivier Assayas
Stars: Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Sigrid Bouaziz, Anders Danielsen Lie, Ty Olwin, Hammou Graïa, Nora von Waldstätten, Benjamin Biolay, Audrey Bonnet, Pascale Rambert, Aurélia Petit, Olivia Ross, Thibault Lacroix, Calypso Valois, Benoit Peverelli
Genre: Horror, DramaBuy from Amazon
Rating:  5 (from 1 vote)
Review: Maureen Cartwright (Kristen Stewart) is a personal shopper to an influential figure in the fashion world, not that she particularly enjoys the experience of popping in to the finest boutiques and snapping up all the most expensive clothes and jewellery her boss has her eye on. Part of that is down to her not being too keen on the woman, but she is undergoing a crisis at the moment which not everyone would be able to understand, largely because she keeps her emotions bottled up, not having anyone she can turn to in order to share her inner turmoil. This is thanks to her twin brother dying recently of a heart defect she shares, and she misses him terribly, but what if there was a method of reaching him from beyond the grave?

Wait, what? Where did the supernatural element arrive from? This was ostensibly a study of grief from writer and director Olivier Assayas, and not the all-out horror onslaught it was advertised as, leaving a lot of disgruntled film fans believing they had been sold a pig in a poke, not many of them prepared for a soul-searching drama that kept its cards close to its chest as far as its overall meaning went. He was a director unafraid to branch off into various digressions seemingly for the hell of it, or at least to amuse himself while demonstrating what a versatile medium cinema could be, though the fact remained his efforts more often than not fell under the bracket of arthouse movies, and not everyone got along with those.

Especially if they had not noticed Stewart was an arthouse queen by this stage, her role in the blockbusting Twilight saga apparently setting her up in her career for the chance to work with all sorts of non-mainstream directors which, all credit to her, she obviously found more satisfying than showing up in more generic fare: you could not envisage her leaping into a fluffy romcom after something like Personal Shopper. In truth, her mentally fragile stylings (in character, that was) were better applied to work like this, so it was nice she had found her metier rather than being damned to scraping by in a series of derivative Hollywood efforts of diminishing returns, and there was little conventional about the shenanigans here.

In fact, the first we saw of Maureen (Maureen?!) was a lengthy introduction where she wandered around an empty house and its autumnal surroundings in the countryside, supposedly so she could get in touch with a spirit as she is convinced she has powers of mediumship, all to settle the fears of the prospective buyers who wanted to know if there were any unquiet presences lurking in the property. She is desperately hoping her brother will contact her from the other side, and looks up various spiritualist videos and books to find out more, pointedly something about the instigators of spiritualism the Fox Sisters who amazed the 19th century audiences with their antics until they admitted they had made it all up and were hoaxers (the rapping sounds they made were them cracking their toes!).

From that you wondered if Assayas was going to point out spiritualism was based on a fraud, yet as he didn't mention the dodgy aspects you suspect he was embracing a movie version of the paranormal, a suspicion confirmed when Maureen is attacked in a ghostly onslaught at the old house. But was that her brother? Or is it the person who keeps texting her and asking her anonymous questions? This plot point was an issue if you were uninterested in reading others' phone texts, as long stretches involved reading what was on the heroine's mobile, which though it brought up the theme of voyeurism did not make for riveting viewing, to say the least. This voyeurism angle extended to positing the audience as pruriently spying on the young woman much as a spirit would, so we got to see Maureen in her private moments, including taking her clothes off and masturbating in the so-called "wank séance" of urban parlance, a potent take on what we get out of cinema, yet the director left it hanging there with an unresolved ending, less haunting and more deflating.
Reviewer: Graeme Clark

 

This review has been viewed 3741 time(s).

As a member you could Rate this film

 
Review Comments (0)


Untitled 1

Login
  Username:
 
  Password:
 
   
 
Forgotten your details? Enter email address in Username box and click Reminder. Your details will be emailed to you.
   

Latest Poll
Which star probably has psychic powers?
Laurence Fishburne
Nicolas Cage
Anya Taylor-Joy
Patrick Stewart
Sissy Spacek
Michelle Yeoh
Aubrey Plaza
Tom Cruise
Beatrice Dalle
Michael Ironside
   
 
   

Recent Visitors
  Stuart Watmough
Paul Shrimpton
Darren Jones
Mary Sibley
Enoch Sneed
Mark Le Surf-hall
  Louise Hackett
Andrew Pragasam
   

 

Last Updated: