Personal Shopper (M)

105 mins Personal Shopper is another of those Cannes Film Festival offerings labelled divisive by critics (see also: Elle, The Neon Demon, Toni Erdmann) – in this case, split between those who love following Kristen Stewart around train stations for an hour, and those who plainly don’t.

It will have received a similarly mixed response at last year’s New Zealand International Film Festival, and while I fall more in the middle (some interesting stuff; don’t hate the lead actress; could probably take or leave it), it’s admirable that the distributor is taking a punt and giving New Zealanders another chance to catch it on the big screen. You might be one of those.

At its centre is Stewart’s Maureen, the titular personal assistant for an unexplored side character, some sort of actress-model-celebrity for whom Maureen must fly and train across the globe to pick up expensive outfits for important events. That we never really know much about her boss and that the film instead focuses on someone who would normally be a supporting character, is one of Personal Shopper‘s many pluses. That Stewart moves effortlessly from scene to scene, literally ignoring our greedy camera as it objectifies her as the unassuming star of every frame, is another pro. That the story meanders somewhat prettily, surprises with some horror moments, then ends with an expositional fizz, makes it slightly less recommendable.

French director Oliver Assayas has written and fashioned a curious hybrid of supernatural mystery and observational drama. The slightly spooky stuff is revealed in the opening scene as Maureen returns to the house of her dead brother, and attempts to