SEPTEMBER 22 ― I should have watched Personal Shopper when it was first released last year. I must confess though that my bias against Kristen Stewart, the lead in the film, held me back.

Here was a woman out of the Twilight series whose acting consisted little more than looking constipated and the title of the movie sounded like it could be Confession of a Shopaholic's somewhat belated sequel. No thanks, I said to myself.

Then a favourite movie critic of mine gave it a very high rating! This somewhat surprised me and I realised it was actually a psychological thriller.

Personal Shopper is about Maureen Cartwright (Kristen Stewart) who lives and works in Paris as a personal shopper; someone who is paid to shop for another person.

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Yes, such people do exist and are apparently paid quite well. Maureen is also grieving the death of her twin brother Lewis.

She believes that that Lewis is about to communicate with her from beyond the grave. This belief has taken over her life.

Her job is also making her miserable. She finds her job uninteresting because she is literally being paid to be someone else, even if it is just in clothing size!

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Furthermore, her boss, a famous international model named Kyra, is a callous individual so full of herself that she cannot spare a moment to even deal with Maureen’s grief.

At the beginning of the film, we find Maureen in the French countryside where her brother Lewis used to live. She gets permission from his girlfriend to spend the night in her late brother’s house hoping that she would find some psychic residue of his presence.

You will not find a 13 Ghosts type experience here but you will find it is quite creepy.

Then Maureen starts receiving text messages from an unknown number. This person refuses to answer her questions and even divulge his identity.

The audience is made to oscillate between two possibilities: that it is her brother or her boss’s soon-to-be ex-lover.

I found it very strange that she is very irritated but keeps responding to him and even sends him a picture and shares personal information. Modern parlance would call that “feeding the troll.”

Maureen also has a very peculiar habit of trying on her boss’s clothes even when she does not have to. This is something her boss has reprimanded her for.

Although she is keen to cling to her job as it will keep her in Paris and able to communicate with Lewis, she cannot resist trying on her boss’s various outfits. Later we find that she does this in order to “become” her boss and perhaps escape being herself, if for just some moments.

As I said before, this is not a horror film, creepy moments notwithstanding. There are some ghostly moments but you will have to interpret their meaning.

Kristen Stewart has come a long way since Twilight, for sure. She handles her role like one who is adept at suppressing one’s emotions but who stumbles from time to time. Stumbles, not falls.

As for the audience, the nerve wrecking ambiguity comes from not knowing if what we are seeing is the objective reality or Maureen’s interpretation thereof. Of course, sometimes they intersect.

What is even more amazing is how the film ends. It is not the Sixth Sense ending I was hoping for but after processing it, I found it a great deal more profound. Give this film a watch, it is truly deep and meaningful.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.