A Private Life, 2025.
Directed by Rebecca Zlotowski.
Starring Jodie Foster, Daniel Auteuil, Virginie Efira, Mathieu Amalric, Vincent Lacoste, Luàna Bajrami, Noam Morgensztern, Sophie Guillemin, Frederick Wiseman, Aurore Clément, Irène Jacob, Park Ji-Min, Jean Chevalier, Emma Ravier, Scott Agnesi Delapierre, and Lucas Bleger.
SYNOPSIS:
The renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner mounts a private investigation into the death of one of her patients, whom she is convinced has been murdered.
The first order of business here is to note that the so-called renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner is French, meaning that Jodie Foster speaks French throughout the majority of co-writer/director Rebecca Zlotowski’s mystery A Private Life. Her accent and handling of the language are also impressive, and that alone is a reason to check out the film. It also must be mentioned that Lilian isn’t precisely a psychiatrist fully attentive to her patients; if anything, she seems bored by them, which is perhaps part of the reason why her mind concocts a riddle to solve within her recordings when a patient, Paula Cohen-Solal (Virginie Efira), turns up dead.
One of Lilian’s patients also shows up hostile, demanding that their sessions be finished as he has found a hypnotist capable of curing his vices (smoking) in a limited time. This also piques her curiosity and brings her to that same hypnotist, where, even though she is condescending and dismissive of the entire concept, she finds herself falling under a spell that could hold clues to uncovering the murderer. With that said, it’s as much a film about Lilian questioning her purpose and the methods deployed regarding her line of work as it is a crafty, twisty puzzle box to solve.
Divorced from her husband, Lillan gets roped into helping Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), who gets roped into her bumbling around, which inevitably leads to discussions about their failed love life. Similarly, Lillan also has a fractured relationship with her grown son, Julian (Vincent Lacoste), now a parent himself, with the running joke that whenever she stops by, the baby wakes up and starts crying profusely. Her personal life is rife with confusion, and her professional life is a bore, pushing her further and further into a mystery that might solely be in her head.
Not to give too much away, but there probably wouldn’t be a movie if there was absolutely nothing to solve here. Naturally, A Private Life has plenty of suspects that crop up from the tapes Lilian plays back to herself, searching for something that will point her in the right direction. It turns out that Paula also led a dysfunctional family life, but, more concerning, it could also be a suicide potentially aided by Lilian herself, once accidentally prescribing the wrong dosage of medicine. With the way some of those recordings are shot and presented in a hazy, hypnotic flashback form, complete with close-ups of Paula lying down on the couch, one also begins to wonder if there is a psychosexual angle at play here.
It shouldn’t be any surprise that A Private Life (co-written by Anne Berest, in collaboration with Gaëlle Macé) is also aggressively silly while cycling through every potential suspect, and that, even if there are clear answers here, the narrative is less about what happened and more about and more proper, present method of conducting therapy. The message the film ultimately lands on there isn’t entirely convincing. To be fair, everything involving the hypnotism is also quite absurd and strains credulity. However, it doesn’t take away from the fact that this is still an entertaining mystery with some compelling character work and an engrossing, controlled spiral of a performance from Jodie Foster.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
