Director Olivier Assayas and actress Kristen Stewart shrugged off the negative response that "Personal Shopper", competing for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, received at the film's premiere.

There were a few boos at the end of the media and the general audience screenings on Monday as the viewers seemed disappointed by the ending, which sees Stewart, an American personal shopper in Paris, trying to connect with her dead brother.

She sees ghosts, receives mysterious text messages and finds herself embroiled in a brutal murder as she goes through what Stewart described as an "identity crisis".

"Movies have a life of their own. People have expectations of a film and then the film is something else," Assayas, who also directed Stewart in "Clouds of Sils Maria", told a news conference on Tuesday.

The Cannes crowd are never shy about showing their disappointment. Last year, American director Gus van Sant's "Sea of Trees" also received boos.

"It happens to me once in a while where people just don’t get the ending," added Assayas, whose film otherwise received good critiques. Stewart, who also starred out of competition in the festival opener "Cafe Society" by Woody Allen, said: "Hey, everyone did not boo."