Maureen Cartwright (Kristen Stewart) communicates with ghosts in Personal Shopper. (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

There was a time when the prospect of Kristen Stewart carrying a movie through the sheer force of her charisma was laughable. No more. Personal Shopper is the latest in a string of vehicles that showcases the actress at the peak of her talents: sullen and shifty as ever, but with shades of melancholy and wit, and a profound depth of feeling.

In this eerie modern ghost story that marks her second collaboration with writer-director Olivier Assayas, Stewart plays Maureen Cartwright. She slogs through an endless roster of menial assignments from her celebrity boss Kyra (Nora von Waldstätten) and spends her free time struggling to communicate with the beyond. Amid twists and turns, the film’s impact hinges on Maureen’s internal life, rendered vividly through Stewart’s expressive features.

If Personal Shopper is a horror movie, its monster is uncertainty. We meet Maureen soon after the death of her twin brother Lewis, her heart still broken. A medium, she takes pains to listen for signs that Lewis is sending her a signal from the afterlife, as he promised he would.

Meanwhile, her own life feels lackluster, with a job that keeps her busy but unfulfilled, a long-distance boyfriend who wants her to move on, and a sister-in-law who already has. Her grip on self-worth is tenuous: A doctor tells her she’ll live to 100, and she replies, “What about 27?”

A chain of anonymous text messages jolts her out of a funk. The camera spends a sizable chunk of the movie’s runtime fixated on the screen of Maureen’s iPhone as she watches the blink of the “typing” icon and jerks up at the sound of a notification buzz. The messages may be coming from a supernatural force, but not necessarily the one Maureen seeks. They taunt, tease, prod, interrogate. Finally, she has someone to talk to. If only there was more she could say.

Stewart helps Assayas create the movie’s thick atmosphere, unearthing new facets of Maureen’s psyche with each passing minute. Personal Shopper bears some resemblance to the director’s great previous film, Clouds of Sils Maria; both movies feature Stewart as an assistant to a female celebrity, allude to otherworldly forces, revel in cloudy skies and murky exteriors, and reference other works in Assayas’ nearly 40-year career.

The differences are crucial, though. Where Clouds told a macro story through the main characters’ relationship, Personal Shopper probes into Maureen’s psyche, flinching every so often. Clouds has reams of delicious dialogue, while Shopper is more spare—and, in a grim way, funnier.

The captivating final scene of Personal Shopper answers few narrative questions but poses dozens of thematic ones, as Assayas plants the camera on Stewart’s face and lets her do the work. Reality and imagination blend until one is indistinguishable from the other. It’s what Maureen has been hoping for—or is it? Closure, she finds as we do, is hard to come by.

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Personal Shopper
Written and directed by Olivier Assayas
With Kristen Stewart, Sigrid Bouaziz, Ty Olwin
Rated R for some language, sexuality, nudity and a bloody violent image
105 minutes
Opens today at Landmark E Street Cinema and Landmark Bethesda Row