Other, more measured thrillers and horror films do something else: they fail to provide those release valve moments, meaning the tension simply builds and builds for 100 or so minutes. Personal Shopper is one of those movies. If Maureen seems lonely and detached, there’s a good reason for that: her brother died one year earlier of a heart attack – and Maureen shares the same inherited defect which means she could also meet the same fate. The morbid air is underlined by Maureen’s secret ability to summon up the spirits of the dead; early in the film, she returns to the deserted, grand family home she and her brother once shared, and experiences a quietly terrifying close encounter of the spooky kind. Not long afterwards, Maureen starts to experience a more prosaic kind of chill: she receives text messages from an unknown sender, who seems to know more about Maureen’s movements and private life than is comfortable. Is the person sending the texts a regular stalker, or is this too some kind of supernatural experience? On the other hand, Maureen’s travelling around and constant use of mobile phones, laptops and Skype underline the sense of technological loneliness. We see Maureen interact with other people now and again – we meet her icy boss once, and a handful of other characters swept up in her orbit – but more often than not, we see the character alone, drifting from place to place on trains or via her little scooter. All of this means that Stewart, who previously collaborated with Assayas on his last film, The Clouds Of Sils Maria, has to carry the film single-handed, and it’s a job she carries off perfectly. Quiet, intelligent, introspective, she makes Maureen a fascinating character to watch. Personal Shopper is out now in UK cinemas.