A Private Life

While film and television history has made way for a plethora of onscreen therapists — from Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting to Lorraine Bracco in The Sopranos — it was once relatively rare for shrinks to achieve main-character status. Between last year’s Rose-Byrne-starring If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and, now, delightful sleuthing-shrink dramedy A Private Life, therapists themselves finally seem to be the ones on the psychoanalysis couch.

After her exquisite parenthood romcom Other People’s Children, French filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski reunites with Virginie Efira, who here plays another mother who may or may not have been murdered. But the effortless charisma of Efira (even when playing a corpse) aside, A Private Life is undeniably a performance vehicle for its American lead, Jodie Foster, who finds herself again somewhat in The Silence Of The Lambs mode, as a shrink-turned-amateur-detective.

Foster’s Dr Lilian Steiner lives in a Paris apartment of dreams. The Jewish therapist is frequently slagged off by her neighbours, her fed-up patients are steadily ditching her, and, after her client Paula (Efira) dies, this usually stoic professional starts crying unstoppably for the first time in years.

At first glance, this seems like a clear-cut meltdown. Yet after Lilian is approached by Paula’s daughter Valérie (Luàna Bajrami), the analyst gets wind that something about her departed former patient’s family is off. Convinced by a quack hypnotist that these events are an elaborate case of déjà vu, Lilian digs further, enlisting the help of her eye-doctor ex Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil) — much to the ire of her unimpressed son Julien (Vincent Lacoste) — and trotting around the French capital with a voice recorder à la Twin Peaks.

Visually, A Private Life is très chic. Georges Lechaptois’ cinematography, Katia Wyszkop’s production design and Bénédicte Mouret’s costuming combine for an aesthetic feast. Below this gloss, though, Zlotowski, Anne Berest and Gaëlle Macé’s screenplay is somewhat slight. There are some standout scenes, such as a comic chaise-longue montage, a wild hypnotherapy dream sequence and a sequence with a tuxedoed Foster which seems to parallel TÁR. But overall, this story of a doctor seeking to cure her ennui is thin in terms of its theme of Jewish identity, and has an unsteady denouement.

That does not detract from the fun of the ride, however. French-film fans will be pleased with its stellar Gallic ensemble — especially Quantum Of Solace’s Mathieu Amalric, who makes an excellent villain — elevated to new levels by the brilliance of Foster, who adeptly navigates this twisty world. And — a fluent speaker, having attended a lycée as a child — she does it all in impeccable French.