Kristen Stewart’s ‘Personal Shopper’ rings up some boos
The famed Cannes Film Festival boo birds came out on Monday night for Kristen Stewart’s new film, Personal Shopper.
Stewart’s latest collaboration with French director Olivier Assayas heard the boos at the end of the film’s press screening and received mixed reviews from critics.
Stewart still dazzled at a Cannes news conference on Tuesday, and one journalist told Assayas that the boos probably were a response to his movie’s ambiguous ending.
“It happens every once in a while where people just don’t get the ending,” Assayas replied. “It’s very clear to me.”
During another light exchange with Stewart, Assayas said: “When you come to Cannes, you’re prepared for anything really. You just go with the flow.”
Stewart added laughing: “Everyone did not boo. Let’s be clear.”
Stewart plays a star’s fashion assistant who can communicate with spirits in Personal Shopper, which is competing for the festival’s Palme d’Or award.
The supernatural-filled drama is Stewart’s second film with Assayas, following her highly praised performance in 2014’s
Clouds of Sils Maria. Stewart referred to her new film as “trippy” in Tuesday’s news conference. In his review of Personal Shop
per, Ben Croll of TheWrap.com posed the question: “Did the film deserve the chorus of jeers (which was by no means unanimous, it bears noting) and hisses? Well, of course not.
“But I’ll grant that for all its merits, Personal Shopper is something of a hot mess,” Croll added.
Variety.com called the film “a broken, but never boring mix of spine-tingling horror story, dreary workplace drama and elliptical identity search, likely to go down as one of the most divisive films of Stewart’s career.”
The film had its gala premiere Tuesday night. Stewart also opened the Cannes festival on Wednesday with Woody Allen’s Café Society.