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At the ending of the film Personal Shopper (2016), Maureen is communicating with a spirit, and we see the following dialog:

– Are you here?
– Yes.
– Have you been waiting for me?
– Yes.
– Are you at peace?
– Yes.
– Are you not at peace?
– Yes.
– Are you playing with me?
– {No answer}.
– Do you mean harm?
– No.
– Lewis, is it you?
– {No answer}.
– Or is it just me?
– Yes.

This does not make much sense.
The film seems to provoke three theories, but neither of them seems to cohere with the film's ending.

Theory # 1: Ingo killed Maureen in the hotel room.

Maureen receives a note: "Hotel Crowne Plaza Room # 329". Then we see Maureen enters the Crowne Plaza Hotel, she goes to the third floor and then she enters the hotel room # 329. Maureen takes jewelry out of the bags and then she hears the room's door opens and closes as if someone else entered the room. The screen then fades to black.
After that we see an invisible ghost that leaves the hotel: from the third floor corridor it moves past the room # 330 into the elevator, out of the elevator in the lobby, and finally out of the front door.
After that we see Ingo exiting the room # 329. As he exits the hotel he is apprehended by two man, but he manages to escape, firing a handgun. Which indicates that he is the culprit.
We are never shown how Maureen (as a live person) leaves the hotel.

Theory # 2: Maureen went crazy at some point in the film and it was she who killed Kyra.

Does not make sense, because then it was no point for Ingo to shoot at the police and run.

Theory # 3: Maureen went crazy at some point in the film or her communication with the ghost was incoherent, but it was Ingo who killed Kyra.

Then the purpose of the meeting in the room # 329 makes no sense. It is suggested that Ingo tried to frame Maureen by planting the jewelry into her apartment. But why then he met with her in the room # 329 and then left alone and without the jewelry? He just wanted to talk with her? He does not look that way when he exits the room. Does not make sense.

So, does this film deliver an incoherent story, or what?

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  • Did you skip over the possibility that "is it just me? yes" refers to who is controlling the Ouija board, and not the story behind the spirit she's supposedly communicating with? I haven't seen the movie, but that is what I read from the "spirit conversation" you posted. If she is subconsciously talking to herself, the {No answer}answers seem to coincide with things she does not know the answer to herself.
    – Flater
    Jul 6, 2017 at 8:42
  • No, that does not seem to be the case. Firstly, she did not use a board to communicate with the spirit. Secondly, the story kind of hints that there is another spirit being present, aside from her own subconsciousness, that tries to communicate with her: she enters another room and sees a glass moving through the air.
    – and his dog
    Jul 21, 2017 at 1:42

3 Answers 3

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I just watched it. I cannot figure it out.

  1. Who killed Kyra? If it's all Maureen's doing, then it doesn't make sense that Ingo confessed to the killing. He also acted very guilty when cops approached him outside the hotel. So let's say Ingo killed Kyra.

  2. Who texted Maureen? Most of the reviews I read said it was Ingo. I find it unlikely that he knew every little detail of Maureen's schedule. He had no reason to tell her to come to the hotel either. In one of the text the stalker said he had her spare keys. Ingo might be a super creep but I don't know how he could obtain them. Also, if he planted the Cartier stuff in her apartment using those keys, he would want them to stay in her place.

  3. Who booked room 329? It cannot be Lewis since he's a ghost and he cannot pay for it. It's not Ingo either since there's nothing he could gain by luring in Maureen (and possibly kill her there) It has to be Maureen.

  4. Then why did Ingo come out of 329? Did Maureen invite him? Why? Only if she wanted to frame Ingo for the murder. Then again, wasn't Ingo the killer?

I cannot reason with the plot. Another thing I find fishy is her boyfriend. He looks quite sickly and Maureen doesn't get to see him in person when she goes to Oman. Does he really exist? He kinda looks like Lewis' ghost that popped up in the kitchen.

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  • Ingo could have obtained the info on Maureen by accessing Kyra's laptop. From emails, etc. He probably had keys from the Kyra's apartment all the time. And he could also get access to Maureen's phone, when she was sleeping at Kyra's. Just as easily he could make a copy of the keys to Maureen's apartment. That's a plausible part. The film hints that Ingo wanted to frame Maureen for the murder and then kill her in the hotel, which is stupid and kind of discordant with the film's ending.
    – and his dog
    Jul 21, 2017 at 1:58
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    Thanks for your explanation. Yes, it makes sense Ingo could've got Maureen's schedule through Kyra, etc. I couldn't figure out what Ingo was up to lol. Oh, another thing- Maureen said she would know if her brother was there. He was there in the kitchen behind her and she didn't know!
    – garamond
    Jul 27, 2017 at 13:40
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I'm going with a straight forward fact pattern. Lewis (the ghost) wants to protect his sister. He gets her out of the murder scene and he protects her in the Rm#329 scene. Maureen gets (maybe returns ?) the jewlery, ( uses it to join BF? She is certainly dressed better on her "vacation"?) Inglo doesn't want it (evidence) but he does want to make sure all his text messages are erased. Which Maureen did by changing the simm card and showing him, no need to kill Maureen & incur a second murder. I agree it's a bit odd that we don't see Maureen leave the hotel but we do see Lewis, the protecting ghost, leave. Next scene Maureen in bar so she's not dead!! The last scene is quixotic but understandable. Lewis is OK but still worried about his sister. If Maureen does not want Lewis around, & not have him worrying about her, she has to look inside herself & get over his death.

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    One does not need to change a SIM card to delete messages from a cell phone. There is no indication in the film that Ingo wanted his messages deleted. Instead his requests were kind of odd and incoherent. If the spirit in the last scene were Lewis, who cared about his sister, then why would he not calm her, saying that it was him and that he was at peace? Instead, the spirit had left her very confused, if not scared.
    – and his dog
    Jul 21, 2017 at 2:15
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The door Ingo said to meet Maureen at is 329 the one he's seen walking out of, the door Maureen enters in the hotel doesn't need a key card and has no number on it. She could have realized the one texting her was Ingo from the fact the text said they had spare keys and since Maureen has keys to Kyras place why wouldn't Kyra have keys to Maureen's?

So he could have stolen them and Kyra was dead so it couldn't have been her, maybe she planned to meet up with police to give the jewelry over to them after saying Ingo planted it at her place and wants to meet her at the hotel. The noise could have been police entering the hotel room since Maureen didn't act startled or scared at the sound of the opening and closing door and she freaked out every time something or someone came up out of nowhere I doubt she'd lay down and die from hearing the door open and close. That'd make sense to why she never was seen leaving the hotel and that two under cover police were outside of the hotel.

The invisible person was probably her brother who may have had something to do with the hotel set up somehow and he was leaving but nothing is really clear on why there were scenes of a invisible person leaving the floor of the hotel and then the hotel. Maybe the purpose was so we'd create our own ending.

I don't understand the ghost thing at the end of the movie though it could of been the spirit who attacked her and possibly followed her around copying the glass dropping which Maureen probably felt was her brother that dropped the glass but wouldn't admit it to herself so if a spirit was copying her brothers glass drop and want to give her hope its him but really wants to make her think shes lost it. I don't know.

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    Please use some punctuation and paragraphs. This is hard to read as it is.
    – Luciano
    Jul 27, 2017 at 8:47
  • That does not seem to be the case. Though the number on the door of the hotel room that Maureen had entered is not shown in the film, if you look closer, you can see that the room she entered is situated exactly as the room that Ingo had exited later on. If I remember correctly, it was the first room on the left from the elevators, in the left row (or something like that, the point is - it undoubtedly was the same room). So, that who had entered the room after Maureen could not be the police, because in a short while Ingo had exited the same room.
    – and his dog
    Jul 27, 2017 at 17:35
  • If i remember correctly, you could't really see the inside of the room Ingo exited, the problem is that the room Maureen entered didn't have a number on the door. Hotel rooms always look identical to each other too.
    – georgia
    Aug 24, 2017 at 11:49
  • No, that is not what the problem is. If you look closer, when Maureen enters the hotel room, the camera shows only a part of the room's door that is below the place where a room's number is located. It is not that the room did not have a number. It's just the camera did not show high enough for us to see it. Apparently it was made intentionally to add some ambiguity and confusion.
    – and his dog
    Sep 5, 2017 at 20:44

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