IFC Films is seemingly determined to diminish the potential box-office of Olivier Assayas‘s Personal Shopper (3.10). First they decide to open it ten months after a bravura debut at last May’s Cannes Film Festival, and over five months after it played at last September’s Toronto and New York film festivals, thus ensuring that the buzz will be dissipated if not forgotten by opening day. Now they’ve come up with a poster that doesn’t even vaguely suggest in visual terms that Personal Shopper is a ghost story. (Yes, there’s a critic blurb that uses the term but good posters always deliver the message in visceral terms.) A fan poster that I found on a Kristen Stewart site does a far better job of conveying the mood and feel of it.

(l.) IFC Films’ recently posted one-sheet for Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper, which will open on 3.10; (r.) a far superior fan poster — one that suggets weird spookery on some level, but at the same doesn’t promise a conventional horror flick.

Posted last October: “You can take the following three statements about Olivier Assayas‘ Personal Shopper (IFC Films, 3.10.17) to the bank: (1) It’s one of the coolest, creepiest and most unusual ghost stories ever made, although it’s definitely not for easily seduced fans of typical moron-level horror flicks; (2) It didn’t get booed in Cannes — I was in the audience and I’m telling you the truth — the ending is what got booed; and (3) It contains Kristen Stewart‘s finest performance ever — nobody can match her antsy, anxiety-ridden behavior and vocal-fry delivery here. The whole jittery undercurrent of urban, upscale life in 2016, that “okay but what’s gonna happen next?” feeling tugs at her manner, throws shade upon her features.

“Here are two more: (4) Some of the most perceptive, clear-light critics of our time — Guy Lodge, Richard Lawson, Eric Kohn, Stephanie Zacharek, Peter Bradshaw, Robbie Collin, Tim Grierson, Jake Howell — are Personal Shopper loyalists; and (5) IFC Films execs intend to repeat their Clouds of Sils Maria strategy by releasing this film, which was shot in ’15 and exploded at last May’s Cannes Film Festival, over five months hence, or two months into Hillary Clinton‘s first term.

“Personal Shopper had a full tank of gas after debuting last May — it reflected the under-zeitgeist and vice versa in spades; that tank will be all but empty by the time 3.10.17 rolls around.”