Immediately after starring in a less successful auteur drama, Walter Salles' big screen adaptation of On the road, Stewart's role in “Clouds of Sils Maria” showed that she was a formidable actress, more than holding her own against the legendary Binoche. But there was also something appealingly meta about the performance. At one point, Stewart's no-nonsense character, Val, comes to the defense of a budding star, Jo-Ann (played by Chloë Grace Moretz), who has been part of a hugely successful franchise but will now be Binoche's co-star. in a new movie. Val maintains that Jo-Ann deserves respect (it's not easy being a woman running a big Hollywood company, she says) and it's impossible to miss the comparisons to Stewart's own “Twilight” odyssey. In “Clouds of Sils Maria,” Stewart slyly defends her past as she says goodbye to him. In the process, she took home the award for Best Supporting Actress at the César Awards, making her the rare American to win an acting award from the French.
His second outing with Assayas is even more notable. Throughout his career up to that point, Stewart had exuded a seductive mystery: a sense that he inhabited this plane, but was also partly somewhere else. It's a quality he shared with Pattinson, which made them well-suited as on-screen lovers in the “Twilight” films. (Even when the films were flimsy, they had an ethereal relationship, as if they operated on a wavelength only they occupied.) But that enigmatic quality has never been used more effectively than in “Personal Shopper,” in which Stewart plays Maureen, another assistant. of some kind, this time for a supermodel (Nora Von Waldstätten). Mourning the death of her twin brother Lewis, Maureen (who is powerfully attuned to the spirit world) is convinced that Lewis will communicate with him from the other side, causing strange occurrences in her home and, more late, disturbingly personal text messages she starts sending. receive from an unknown source. They are connected?
Like “Clouds of Sils Maria,” “Personal Shopper” can be read as a critique of stardom, with Stewart as the decidedly ordinary personal shopper whose job is to make sure her glamorous employer is always dressed in the latest fashions. But because Assayas unravels several mysteries throughout the film, none of which he cares to solve, Stewart's quietly vulnerable performance ratchets up the tension. A film about women's pain and fear of being stalked by a potential ruthless attacker, “Personal Shopper” is, to date, Stewart's greatest achievement: a standout clip of her nervous, out-of-character behavior and the silent intensity that can bring to seemingly simpler roles. Few ghost stories are as moving.
