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Personal Shopper(2017)
IFC Films Mar 10, 2017 | Limited
A personal shopper in Paris refuses to leave the city until she makes contact with her twin brother who previously died there. Her life becomes more complicated when a mysterious person contacts her via text message.
Releases
Original Release | Mar 10, 2017
Box Office
Results
$79,175
$1,305,195
$1,535,213
$2,840,408
Director & Top Cast
Technical Specifications
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio: 2.40 : 1
Other Details
Country of Origin: France
Summaries
Plot Summary
- A gray car approaches the chain-locked gate of a house in the woods. A young woman (Maureen, played by Kristen Stewart) gets off the passenger seat and unlocks the padlock to let the car into the front yard. The driver, another young woman (Lara, played by Sigrid Bouaziz) gives the first one the keys to the house with instructions, but says she can't stay because there are too many memories. When Maureen enters the house, we see that it's completely empty. She spends the remaining hours daylight and the night in the house, walking around. There's no electricity, so it's in complete darkness at night save for the moonlight. Maureen seems to be looking for, or waiting for someone, and when she hears distant noises, we hear her saying "Lewis?", "Lewis, is that you?", but nothing happens. In the morning, Lara comes back to the house looking for Maureen and finds her sleeping. She finds out Maureen felt a presence but it was too far from her, and tells her she "must make contact". They meet a couple of her Lara's friends later, one of whom Maureen finds out had one her paintings commissioned by ghosts.She starts looking into that painting while we find out about her daily life as a personal shopper in Paris. She's shown at high-end boutiques and fashion stores shopping for a high-profile celebrity who's seemingly never in one place for more than a couple of days. We find that she's a difficult person to work for, but has no restrictions with money. Maureen has a key to her apartment in Paris, and comes and goes as she needs to. She receives her payments and instructions via notes or phone calls most of the time. We also find that Maureen has a small apartment of her own, and a boyfriend who is away for work in Oman. Through their conversation on Skype, we find that Maureen hates this particular job and working for Kyra (Nora Waldstätten), but she insists on staying because she's waiting to hear from Lewis.In her research into the paintings and spirits, she learns that spirits have been on the forefront of technological developments such as photography and the invention of the Morse code. We learn through a couple of encounters with other professionals that Kyra has forbidden Maureen from her trying on her clothes before purchasing them, and has a reputation of being a "monster" to work with. We see Maureen at a cardiology appointment where we find out she has a malformation in her heart, the same as Lewis, who the doctor reveals was her twin brother.When she goes to Kyra's apartment later, she meets Ingo (Lars Eidinger), Kyra's lover. It is revealed that Kyra's about to dump him for fear that her husband is going to find out, and as the conversation deepens, Maureen opens up to Ingo. Lewis died of a heart attack here in Paris due to a heart condition, and now Maureen is waiting for a sign from Lewis so that he can prove he was right about the afterlife being real.Maureen returns to her brother's house to spend another night, and it is confirmed as Lara drops Maureen off that she was Lewis's girlfriend when he was alive. this time she does make contact with a spiritual being. It isn't her brother, however; it's just an angry spirit who scares her and leaves. After that, Maureen starts getting text messages from an unknown number who she doesn't know to be alive or dead, or a man or a woman. The texts sound threatening at first, but Maureen gives in starts conversing with them. These conversations lead her to let go of her inhibitions about not touching Kyra's possessions, and she even goes to a hotel room following instructions from the texter and sends them a picture of herself in the hotel room wearing Kyra's clothes.At Lara's place later, telling her about her second night in Lewis's house, she finds that Lara started seeing someone. It's a mutual friend of her and Lewis's, who stood by her side after Lewis's death and they grew close. Maureen gives her her blessing, saying they both deserve to be happy. They also end up talking about how Victor Hugo communicated with the dead using knocks, and that there's an old movie about that.The next time she goes to Kyra's apartment, she finds her brutally murdered. She's questioned by the police and isn't allowed to leave the country. She isn't detained, however, and on her way home, she gets insistent texts from the unknown number demanding to know if she's told the police about the texts. She ignores them and goes home, talks to her boyfriend. When they hang up on the computer, she checks her phone and sees several texts from the unknown number telling her to go to this other hotel room. When there's no answer from Maureen, the texts get increasingly suspenseful saying that the texter is coming to her apartment, and she sees the last text saying that the texter is on her landing was sent just a few minutes ago. She gets very scared as she approaches her door and looks through the peephole, but there's no one there. She finds the keycard to a hotel room with the address under her door.The next day, she changes her sim card on her way to the hotel, this time going in her own clothes, and lets herself into room 326 with the card left under her door. She hears someone in the bathroom, but we don't see what happens next. Instead, we see the elevator doors on the floor open and close with no one there. Down in the lobby, they open and close again. Then, the sliding glass doors leading outside the hotel open and close with nobody visible to trigger the motion sensors. Next, we see the door to room 326, where Maureen was, and we see Ingo get out. From the same camera perspectives as the previous scenes, we see him get in the elevator, get off in the lobby, and exit the hotel. He's grabbed by two men once he's outside, who try to get him to get into a car. He resists, and then shoots one of them while he runs away.Maureen, talking to Lara at a cafe, tells her Ingo was arrested for murdering Kyra and the case was closed. She's free to leave the country, so she'll go join her boyfriend at a mountain trekking trip in Oman. Lara invites her to stay at her place, which Maureen accepts. At Lara's place, she meets Gary (Ty Olwin), Lara's new boyfriend, in the backyard. They sit and talk together about Lewis and Gary and Lara's relationship. Maureen assures Gary that she has nothing against them being together. After Gary leaves, Maureen remains sitting in the chair with her back to the kitchen windows and door. A dirty blond, bearded young man is visible in the kitchen holding a glass. When he moves behind Maureen towards the door, only the glass is visible where is supposed to reappear on the other side of Maureen. The glass floats in the air for a second, but Maureen doesn't see it. It then falls down and crashes on the kitchen floor. Maureen thinks it just fell off the countertop.In the next scene, Maureen is at the airport leaving France. She arrives at her boyfriend's hotel, where he's left her instructions to get to the mountain. On the way, Maureen and the driver make a pitstop. As Maureen sits waiting in a teahouse, possibly for the driver, she has the view of a tearoom through the door in front of her. When she looks inside, she sees a teaglass floating in the air. She gets up and enters the room, asking out loud if it's Lewis. She hears one knock for yes. She asks him if he's at peace, and hears another knock for yes. Before she asks another question, she hears another knock, which alters the previous answer to two knocks for no. She asks, "Are you not in peace?" and hears one knock. Then, "Are you playing with me?". One knock. "Do you mean harm?" Two knocks. "I don't know you. Who are you? Who are you?!" Silence. "Lewis is it you?" No answer. "Or is it just me?" One knock. The end.
Storyline
- It's already been three months since the sudden death of her 27-year-old twin brother Lewis from a congenital malformation of the heart, and Maureen, a young fashionista, assistant to a celebrity woman and a capable medium, still hasn't made any contact with him. Spending her time between high profile fashion establishments and the abandoned Lewis' house in Paris, Maureen is silently battling with the gut-wrenching grief and sorrow, while at the same time, looking for a sign from her deceased brother after an oath taken between the twins. Aloof, disoriented and still mourning, wraithlike Maureen attuned to the ethereal realm, is inevitably caught between this world and the spiritual, always looking for portals and a sign that would prove her brother right, however, in vain. Unexpectedly, as the days pass by swiftly and the random apparitions become more frequent, Maureen will start to receive strange text messages from an unknown sender who seems to know a lot about her, but in the end, if there is still no sign of the beloved Lewis, is there any point in waiting? — Nick Riganas Maureen Cartwright works as a personal fashion shopper for an egotistical celebrity named Kyra. It is a job she dislikes for a boss she dislikes, who she rarely sees, but it is a job which allows Maureen to stay in Paris, where she feels she needs to be at least in the short term. Maureen's twin brother, Lewis, recently died from a heart attack. Maureen suffers from the same genetic heart defect that led to Lewis' death, it is a condition which is manageable in that it need not be a death sentence. Maureen and Lewis are/were also mediums, they not only having a spiritual connection to each other, but to the spirit world, although Maureen admits that she more often followed Lewis who was more attuned to his abilities. They made a pact that whoever died first would send a sign to the other about the afterlife. Lewis' partner, Lara, wants to sell her and Lewis' Paris house to couple friends of theirs, they who want some indication before they buy that Lewis is all right with them moving in and/or that he is not haunting the house. In doing Lewis and Lara's friends and Lara the favor of spending a night in the house for this purpose, Maureen hopes that Lewis may send her that sign. As Maureen continues on with her life, she begins to experience things that she is uncertain are real which could/would mean that someone sinister is toying with her, coded signs from Lewis, something else and/or a combination of the above, the actual source of what she is experiencing which would dictate how she should react. — Huggo
