Review by Brad balfour
Film: “A Private Life”
Director: Rebecca Zlotowski
Cast: Jodie Foster, Daniel Auteuil, Virginie Efira, Matthieu Amalric, Vincent Lacoste, Luana Bajrami
Featured at the 63rd New York Film Festival (NYFF63) in the Spotlight lineup, “A Private Life is a dynamic film noir about a psychoanalyst coping with their own anxieties in a very arch way.
When she is told of her longtime patient’s death, renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner (Jodie Foster) is deeply troubled by the sudden death. Since Paula’s death (Virginie Efira) is proclaimed a suicide, some of her family members blame Steiner. Maybe as a device to cope with this loss, she becomes convinced that it was murder, so she decides to investigate.
Following its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, director Rebecca Zlotowski’s dark comedy-mystery offers Foster a chance to deliver her first performance almost entirely in perfect French (with a few moments in English).
Foster plays an esteemed Parisian therapist whose professional and personal life is upended when the death occurs. Though her practice seems to be going along as ever, there are cracks appearing in her life before it happens. Blamed by both Paula’s husband (Mathieu Amalric) and daughter Valérie (Luàna Bajrami), Lilian begins to suspect foul play and launches her own investigation with the help of her ex-husband Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil).
While some of her attempts to investigate verge on the absurd, her notion swirls in her head like a whirlpool in a drain. Meanwhile, she is trying to navigate her strained relationship with her son Julien (Vincent Lacoste). All of this turbulence is beginning to disrupt her practice. The drama reveals the precipitous nature of being a therapist and having people’s internal lives in their hands.
In her first feature film role since 2023’s “Nyad,” Foster shines again. The character could have easily been pushed to an extreme, becoming either ridiculous or annoying. But Foster somehow manages to make her personal crisis both sensible and traumatic.
In a delightful way, director Zlotowski manages to be ridiculous while also giving substance to a profession many don’t understand or even decry. With an excellent supporting cast including Auteuil and Amalric, she turns a film full of eccentrics into something witty and compelling.