What Does The End Of Personal Shopper Really Mean?

7. Was Maureen Imagining The Ghosts?

Personal Shopper Ghosts
Les Films du Losange

Perhaps the movie's most obvious theory is that Maureen was imagining the spirits the entire time, her subconscious simply creating these images in order to help her deal with her own grief.

The most compelling evidence to this effect is the fact that "Lewis" partook in the knocking game that Maureen learned about earlier from the Victor Hugo movie, and some viewers even believe that the vomiting female phantasm may be unconsciously lifted from the picture of Hilma af Klint Maureen looked at in her abstract art book earlier in the film. She is putting her own experiences into the paranormal activity.

There's an easy rebuke to this theory, though, that the ghosts leave crosses scratched on several surfaces, in one case high up on a wall that Maureen wouldn't be able to reach. Also, Lewis' former girlfriend Lara (Sigrid Bouaziz) witnesses both the cross and a glass smashing, so it doesn't really wash that these phenomena are contrived in Maureen's mind.

Plus, the movie's perspective doesn't seem especially intended to be solely Maureen's: take the chilling climactic image of a ghostly male figure, possibly Lewis, appearing at the window behind Maureen as she sits in Lara's garden. Maureen doesn't see this, which suggests it's an "objective" moment for the audience beyond any doubt.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.