One more review from a top film critic, Richard Brody, which was submitted earlier today (3/20/17), which despite being a negative review, may be the most telling and revelatory as far as how talented a critic considers Kristen to be in relation to her performance in PS:
"'Personal Shopper' and the Misunderstood Art of Kristen
Olivier Assayas’s “Personal Shopper” is a big leap and a big risk, one that puts his artistry to the test along with that of the movie’s star, Kristen Stewart; from the start, it’s an admirably bold movie that suggests an unusual and palpable urgency on Assayas’s part, which only makes its failings all the more pronounced.
In “Personal Shopper,” Stewart is front and center throughout the film; though it has many characters, it’s the closest thing to a one-person show that the movies have offered in a while. For much of the movie—including in its best scenes—she’s acting alone, confronting a special-effects-conjured spirit, a series of menacing text messages, and a fancy wardrobe and its psychological implications. The sheer audacity of the plan is thrilling, especially following the art-snob sludgery of “Sils Maria,” “Summer Hours,” and some of Assayas’s other recent work.
Kristen Stewart is as fine an actress as she is a misunderstood one. I have always been bewildered by the old meme about her inscrutably blank expressions. In fact, her spontaneous subtlety, the passing of emotions through her with a minimal outward display, is among the qualities that put her at the forefront of her generation’s performers. Her dominant talent is being herself: her manner is spontaneous, angular, awkward; she’s the geek who blossomed into a cool girl without changing at all—she was always cool and it just took the rest of the world time to catch up. She’s not a conspicuously technical actor, and that’s the core of her art. The closest artistic counterpart to Stewart is Greta Gerwig. What they have in common (to borrow Norman Mailer’s line about Marlon Brando) is that whatever they’re about to say on their own seems likely more interesting than whatever a screenwriter has written for them. Stewart is, in effect, a mumblecore actress stuck in studio movies. Where Gerwig got started by being herself, improvising in Joe Swanberg’s “Hannah Takes the Stairs,” Stewart was an international star while still a teen-ager, performing lines written for her long before filmmakers might have become interested in what she could say for herself. The implication of personal life in performance with which Gerwig launched her career might be unbearably risky for an already-established star of Stewart’s stature.
In any case, “Personal Shopper” puts Stewart through scenes and texts so closely defined as to allow her little leeway beyond the narrow margins of stage directions. As directed by Assayas, her performance abandons her powerfully emotional near-neutrality and veers and lurches between familiarly indicative, visually legible expressions. It’s impossible to know whether this is a result of too much direction or too little—whether Assayas filmed Stewart goggle-eyed with awe at her talent or deference to her celebrity and therefore left her to interpret his intentions effortfully, or whether he directed her insistently and specifically to the detriment of her artistry. In either case, the result is that Stewart’s distinctive qualities are submerged; as engaging a performer as she is to watch, she could as easily have been replaced, in “Personal Shopper,” with another of the leading lights of her generation, such as Jennifer Lawrence or Tessa Thompson. In fact, while watching the film, I found myself imagining their more overt emotionalism in lieu of the strained expressivity to which Assayas pushes Stewart.
The problem of Stewart’s performance is indicative of Assayas’s broader weaknesses as a director. In “Personal Shopper,” his subject is intimacy and sensuality, but the film offers neither. The form and the touch of the finery that Maureen buys and tries on is supposed to rattle her very soul, but Assayas neither gets close to the clothing nor to Maureen; there are no hands, no texture, no sense of scent, no allure other than the one that’s dictated in the script. There’s no physicality to the way that Assayas films the luxurious garments and accessories or Maureen’s approach to them. He films a series of playlets in which the actors merely play out the facts in the script. For that matter, he doesn’t get close to Stewart, either; using almost no close-ups, capturing her in indifferent middle shots, he mainly follows her, in a show of directorial faux-submissiveness. He neither dramatizes Maureen’s intimacy nor conveys Stewart’s own." ~Richard Brody
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/review-personal-shopper-and-the-misunderstood-art-of-kristen-stewart
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Ron2011 (908)
7 years ago
This movie has a 79% score on RT, Rotten Tomatoes. Lots of good reviews, but also some mixed views at Cannes since it apparently has some unique aspects to the film which some reviewers didn't understand or something. But overall lots of good reviews, especially for Kristen who is the main character and carries the movie very well.
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LLOwens (983)
7 years ago
"Lots of good reviews, but also some mixed views at Cannes since it apparently has some unique aspects to the film which some reviewers didn't understand or something."
I believe the discrepancy which many of the critics who did not like Personal Shopper have in common is they may be attempting to critique this film based on their idea of what constitutes a good film. For example, the vast majority of good Hollywood films are based on an archplot, which involves conflict and inciting incidents driving the story forward which reaches a crescendo point during the climax and concludes on a positive note, where the lead character has a clear arc where she makes undeniable progress of some sort, a character whom the audience can empathize with and thus live vicariously through this character's ordeals and root for her.
In contrast, European art house films, even the good ones, are usually based on an antiplot and are usually more dialogue driven than story driven like their American counterparts. The scenes in many European art house films don't necessarily interconnect to form a cohesive whole in the way that most good Hollywood produced films do, in the sense that one scene is a payoff for the next scene, repeating this process over and over again throughout the film. Such films often have open-ended, even ambiguous endings as is the case with Personal Shopper. Perhaps this is the reason why some booed this film when it premiered at Cannes, because the ending did not bring the closure they expected. This will be the reason why, despite Kristen churning out another Oscar-worthy performance, that the Academy won't give her performance the time of day. In other words, the right kind of performance, the wrong type of film.
Because Kristen's acting still transcended her role and the European art house style of filmmaking, as even some of the critics who did not particularly enjoy watching Personal Shopper still spoke very highly of Kristen's performance nonetheless, if only she would be cast in a similar role, but this time in an Oscar bait type film, then the Academy would not be able to ignore her talent even if they tried. But this will take a top tier director who is willing to cast Kristen as a lead in his film along with hiring an accomplished screenwriter who will tailor make his screenplay to play to her strengths and allow her to run with it.
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Ron2011 (908)
7 years ago
LL, good summary. Yeah, Euro films are different and it's often a refreshing change IMO, especially from the often typecast plot lines of US films. I like the character driven stories as much as the big action films. Each type film has its place and the character driven stories often reflect more on the human story much more so.
Agree also that these type films are more difficult for Oscars to notice, especially being foreign films as those don't usually get considered. I guess unless it's a big film with a large box office in the US.
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LLOwens (983)
7 years ago
"Yeah, Euro films are different and it's often a refreshing change IMO, especially from the often typecast plot lines of US films."
One way of avoided cliched filmmaking is by mixing genres which Assayas has done with Personal Shopper as some critics have labeled this film's genre as undefinable.
"Each type film has its place and the character driven stories often reflect more on the human story much more so."
This is what makes Kristen more versatile than most give her credit for, as she's an actress who does well in both character driven films as well as plot driven storylines which often rely more on an actor's physicality. For example, she helped anchor a $3.3 billion film franchise, has received critical acclaim for the great chemistry she displayed with Juliette Binoche in the dialogue driven film Clouds of Sils Maria, along with other actors such as Jesse Eisenberg in Adventureland and Cafe Society as well as with Dakota Fanning in The Runaways, has more than held her own starring opposite Oscar winning actors such as Julianne Moore in Still Alice and Jodie Foster in Panic Room, can steal scenes even with her small supporting roles in films such as in Into the Wild, Certain Women, Anesthesia and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, has the screen presence and physicality to star in big budget movies such as Snow White and the Huntsman and can even succeed in solitary roles such as Speak and of course, Personal Shopper where in several scenes, she is the only visible character onscreen which requires subtle and nuanced acting to accompany her reticent persona.
Olivier Assayas recently commented on Kristen's versatility in an interview with AMNew York:
http://www.amny.com/entertainment/olivier-assayas-on-kristen-stewart-personal-shopper-1.13301495
"What, to you, makes Kristen such a great screen presence?
I think she’s incredibly gifted. I think also she has this completely fascinating relationship with the camera. It’s something beyond her own talents. She has it. It’s something that’s obvious. It’s something that struck me the first time I saw her onscreen in Sean Penn’s film, “Into the Wild.” She stands out. There is something that happens when she’s onscreen that’s beyond analyzing. What’s exciting about her is the mixture she has of animal instinct and deep technical knowledge of what she’s doing.
Do you encounter that much?
It’s very rare to have a combination of the two. You have great, very technical actresses, you have intuitive actresses, but actresses who have both, who know how to use their instinct to control in very nuanced ways what they do, it’s pretty unique.
What about for “Personal Shopper,” specifically?
In terms of a movie like this one, which deals with the supernatural, with the invisible, I thought it was really important to have an actress that’s as grounded and real as Kristen. The thing is, Kristen brings everything back to something very human, simple, obvious, and she connects that with the audience.
Are you guys going to work together again?
I would make another film with her tomorrow. I just don’t have the subject yet, but I’m sure I will find it. I think there’s really space for us to make another film. I would love it to happen."
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Ron2011 (908)
7 years ago
" It’s something that struck me the first time I saw her onscreen in Sean Penn’s film, “Into the Wild.”
She got a lot of notice for that role, a minor, supporting role. It got her a number of other roles as well. Another role I think is Panic Room. In that she was also in a support role and held her own against veteran actors Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker, yet was still just a kid of about eleven or twelve. Or maybe she was more than support since there was a small cast but even so she did so well whether main or support role.
Assayas has a lot of good things to say and gives some in depth views on Kristen as an actress. I don't think she gets enough credit for it but I guess she would need to be in larger US films to really get the Hollywood notice.
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LLOwens (983)
7 years ago
"Assayas has a lot of good things to say and gives some in depth views on Kristen as an actress."
In his most recent interview, Assayas describes her down-to-earth, off screen persona https://moviemovesme.com/2017/03/27/olivier-assayas-talks-personal-shopper-and-kristen-stewart/ :
"Personal shopper is much more grounded and I think that it was inspired by Kristen in a way. So the question is why was I inspired by Kristen Stewart? I think that as opposed to big movie stars she’s incredibly simple, natural, easygoing and that’s what I like the most in her. She has this kind of media persona where she’s in the tabloid and looks like a nutcase but she isn’t! She’s great, she’s simple, she’s very protective of her intimacy and she’s not the girl next door. She’s really someone who’s just so here and now. I like her regular person, this everyday person and I like the idea of representing someone who has some healthy perspective on her celebrity culture!"
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Ron2011 (908)
7 years ago
LL, this is one reason I like Kristen, her off screen persona. She's a down to earth person, which some actors/actresses are, and I like that about her and others similar. They don't get all caught up in the Hollywood fame and glitz, it doesn't go to their heads that much.
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LLOwens (983)
7 years ago
Agreed Ron. Several of my fave actors working in Hollywood today also shun the limelight such as Daniel Day Lewis, Denzel Washington, Harrison Ford, Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio and Joaquin Phoenix. Of course they promote their films and walk the red carpet when they have to, but they mostly prefer to stay out of the spotlight, which is sometimes hard to do considering their A-list status.
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Ron2011 (908)
7 years ago
I think Steve Carell is in that same category of shunning the limelight. His family still runs a shop in a seaside town in Massachusetts, something like that, from what I heard about a year ago from Steve in an interview and how he spends his time.
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