A Private Life sees Rebecca Zlotowski direct Hollywood legend Jodie Foster in a near-all-French-speaking mystery that is an intriguing, albeit scattershot, thriller with atmosphere and empathy in abundance.
Rebecca Zlotowski is an underrated filmmaker. Her career, which spans twenty years of shorts, scripts, and features, showcases a captivating interest in people and the contradictions that make one’s humanity so engrossing. Her greatest film, 2022’s Other People’s Children, showcased her storytelling idiosyncrasies at their most compelling. With A Private Life, Zlotowski directs Hollywood legend Jodie Foster in a near-all-French-speaking mystery. It’s an intriguing, albeit scattershot, thriller with atmosphere and empathy in abundance.
Lilian Steiner (Foster) is a stoic Jewish-American psychiatrist. Having moved to France for marriage, she conducts therapy sessions from her Parisian flat, yet seems mostly distant from her patients. She prefers to record sessions on MiniDisc recorders for later reference rather than listen with full attention. Pair that with her rocky relationships with her adult son, Julien (Vincent Lacoste), and ex-husband, Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), and we get a woman who seems to lack emotional intelligence despite her occupation.
Her flaws are put to the test with the tragic news that one of her patients, Paula (Virginia Efira), has committed suicide. When struck by bizarre, persistent tears that she can’t control, Lilian starts to look deeper into Paula’s death. What starts as an irritated attempt at closure becomes an all-consuming mystery involving hypnotism, hallucinations and a possible inheritance conspiracy as Lilian begins to suspect foul play in Paula’s passing.
There’s a lot to unpack here, with a myriad of components that don’t always mesh well together. But the subtext underneath is classic Zlotowski in its deceptive richness. The inciting incident provokes a compelling conflict – a psychiatrist coming to terms with their own emotions via a tragedy that can be perceived as a failure of theirs. It’s a nebulous zone where grief and guilt take on a distressing, hybridised form, albeit one that’s tricky to portray physically in service of an audiovisual medium like cinema. This is what causes the film to descend into a low-key murder mystery story as Lilian starts investigating inconsistencies in Paula’s death herself, resulting in shocking revelations and bizarre imagery brought on by alternative forms of therapy – namely, hypnotism.
It’s a convoluted and somewhat contrived turn of events, but it nonetheless creates an air of intrigue that builds on terrific foundations. The picture is at its strongest when acting as a character study of a human being full of contradictions. Lilian is a fascinating antiheroine, as her biggest flaw isn’t her ego or stubborn stoicism – although both are at play. It’s how out of touch she is with her own emotions and how that affects her relationships and professionalism.
She’s not always likeable, but you still get the sense that there’s a part of her that really cares about others deep down, and that her refusal to come to terms with herself is preventing her from being the best mother, grandmother and therapist she can be. Even her decision to go down a conspiratorial rabbit hole suggests she’d rather follow a possible wild goose chase than take an honest look at herself and her feelings. She’s a great, complex character who carries the film, even as it threatens to get too strange for its own good.
Atmosphere goes a long way in generating engagement. It’s evident that the works of Hitchcock were a direct influence on the film, as it utilises unconventional camera angles – with particular focus on characters going up and down staircases; a creative choice straight out of Vertigo – and a somewhat muted tone and colour palette to build suspense. The film ensures that both the characters and the audience remain in a state of discomfort as Lilan confronts emotions she’s spent decades repressing, the bleak, oppressive mise-en-scene adding to such feelings. Robin Coudert’s soundtrack maintains an ominous presence throughout, underscoring mysterious developments and dreamlike imagery as Lilian wades between reality and apparent fantasy. All the while, Jodie Foster confidently juggles the fortitude and subtle vulnerability of her role, maintaining Lilian’s emotionally detached demeanour while gradually revealing the deeper humanity beneath.
For most of the runtime, A Private Life is compelling and at least inspires curiosity. It’s quite fluid in its approach to the thriller genre, as Lilian’s meetings with a hypnotist lead her to experience visions that may hint at complicated feelings surrounding what Paula represents, but may also be a form of witnessing a past life. It’s an interesting inclusion, but it muddies the picture’s tone and narrative flow. What made Other People’s Children so captivating was how staunchly grounded in realism it was, and A Private Life is at its best when it utilises the same methodology. The hallucinations and dream imagery may add to the atmosphere, but it ultimately throws off the film’s structure, making the story harder to follow.
That the payoff to Lilian’s investigation is disappointingly simplistic, albeit with an edge of vagueness, also takes away from what could’ve been quite a gripping thriller. But A Private Life still offers a wealth of insightful observations on people and emotions, working best as a detailed character study of emotional detachment. As stylistically and tonally uneven as it can be, the film is an astute insight into the distances we create between ourselves and our emotions, bolstered by Zlotowoski’s sensitive, experimental direction. Foster brings the film together with her titanic performance, and the craft surrounding its mystery keeps the whole thing absorbing, even if the payoff is a little weak. If nothing else, A Private Life is a good springboard for one to start exploring Zlotowoski’s colourful, often overlooked, filmography.
A Private Life is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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