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Personal Shopper is one of the weirdest films I’ll see all year, so the quirky and incredibly alluring Kristen Stewart makes for a perfect fit as Maureen Cartwright, a personal shopper for demanding model boss Kyra… and that’s a boss who’s a model, not a ‘model boss’. As I said, Kyra’s demanding, in fact, to the point where she’s kinda a pain in the ass.
In fact, she’s getting to the point where she wants to just sack everything off and head out to Muscat, Oman, where boyfriend Gary is living.
What’s stopping her? Her twin brother Lewis has recently died, and she feels things have not ended just yet, in terms of the fact that they made a pact such that when one died, they’d find away to send the other one a sign… So, can she feel a presence?
What follows is a hugely engaging film which talks about finding a path into the spirit world, a scene where she gets herself checked out by the doctor, to see if she’ll be similarly affected as they’re twins, lpus she gets harrassing texts. Is it Lewis from the afterlife? Is it a cyberbully? If it’s the latter, the best way to deal with them is just to block them in every aspect you can. With no way to communicate with you, they can’t get through, you’re not tempted to reply to their demands as a result, and so they have nothing to respond to.
It does rather lose its way a bit in the mid-section, but there’s still a lot of intrigue in there, and as a whole, it’s effective enough even when she’s just asking him for a sign, whilst she’s alone in a dark house, but when all the spirits appear, it goes batsh -it mental!
Plus, like all our jobs… “I spend my days doing bullshit that doesn’t interest me, and it keeps me from what does. It’s driving me fucking crazy.”
The film is presented in the original 2.35:1 widescreen ratio and in 1080p high definition. The image is crystal clear and there are zero defects in the various locations, even though Maureen’s world is mostly a dark one.
The sound is in DTS HD 5.1 and is mostly an ambience-driven piece with some dialogue. At times, there’s split-surround effects when certain things are happening, so
if you have the right set-up, you’ll enjoy this as it’s meant to be heard.
Sadly, like the evidence in reality for whether there’s an afterlife, the extras follow suit – almost completely sparse with a mere trailer (1:52) and an audio description track.
The menu mixes music from the film with clips, there are the bog-standard 12 chapters and subtitles in English only.
Personal Shopper is released today on Blu-ray and DVD, and click on the packshot for the full-sized version.
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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
7.5 10 8 1 |
| OVERALL | 6.5 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 106 minutes
Studio: Icon Home Entertainment
Cat.no.: ICON70335R0
Year: 2017
Released: July 16th 2017
Chapters: 12
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS HD Master Audio 5.1, DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English
Subtitles: English SDH
Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Techniscope)
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Olivier Assayas
Producer: Charles Gillibert
Screenplay: Olivier Assayas
Cast:
Maureen Cartwright: Kristen Stewart
Ingo: Lars Eidinger
Lara: Sigrid Bouaziz
Erwin: Anders Danielsen Lie
Gary: Ty Olwin
Police Officer: Hammou Graïa
Kyra: Nora von Waldstätten
Victor Hugo: Benjamin Biolay
Cassandre: Audrey Bonnet
Jérôme: Pascal Rambert
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.