Guest Movie Review: Personal Shopper

photo source - do not own

Hey everyone! I have Catherine Hume back again with another guest post. This time she's reviewing the movie Personal Shopper, which stars Kristen Stewart. Give her a big welcome and comment below! To learn more about the film, go here.

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My!  Hasn't Kristen Stewart grown?!

I've just seen the art house film Personal Shopper starring Kristen Stewart, and I can say her abilities as an actor have clearly flourished.  Admittedly I may be behind the curve because I've only seen Kristen Stewart in the Twilight films (my best friend fancied Stewart), and I know I wasn't the only one who found Stewart's acting in the Twilight films wooden - so wooden that Bella Swan may as well  have been played by a peg on a stick.  Watching Stewart's performance in Personal Shopper was a welcome surprise.  In this film, Stewart's acting was realistic, nuanced and human.

Personal Shopper is "another Black Swan" as my beautiful husband called it.  There were several storylines in this film.  The most the viewer can follow easily are that Kristen Stewart plays Maureen, an American in Paris, a personal shopper, whose twin brother Lewis died of a condition she also has.  Then we find that Maureen and Lewis were both mediums and Maureen is trying to exorcise the house he lived in.  Then it all gets a bit complicated - another Black Swan.  What is real and what is perhaps not becomes confused and like Black Swan and that other famous gay/bisexual film The Talented Mr Ripley, at the end of the film the viewer is left with more questions than answers.  Perhaps this is what defines a film as a good art house film?

As LGBT people, we know that when we are not constantly looking over our shoulders for lesbo/homo/bi/transphobia our minds are freed to excel.  Maybe this is what happened with Kristen Stewart?  She is no longer the wooden, blank actor who played Bella Swan so miserably but an actor in the truest of senses. 

In Personal Shopper Maureen's sexual orientation is not discussed.  However, throughout the film, all I could think when I looked at Stewart's various outfits was, "You're looking very Shane today!"  (L Word fans, welcome.)  That little pony tail Stewart wears that is similar to the one Shane rocked at the end of Series 4.  That slouch beanie that is welded to Shane's head for half of Series 6.  The vest tops under T-shirst and NO BRAS.  Shane.

With this being an art house film, it's possible it's slipped under your radar.  My advice:  seek it out!  For me, this film was a nice surprise, and as a bi woman I thought it was great to see Kristen Stewart doing so well in such a rich and complex film.