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While film and television history has made way for a plethora of onscreen therapists \u2014 from Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting<\/em> to Lorraine Bracco in The Sopranos<\/em> \u2014 it was once relatively rare for shrinks to achieve main-character status. Between last year\u2019s Rose-Byrne-starring If I Had Legs I\u2019d Kick You<\/em> and, now, delightful sleuthing-shrink dramedy A Private Life<\/em>, therapists themselves finally seem to be the ones on the psychoanalysis couch.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n After her exquisite parenthood romcom Other People\u2019s Children<\/em>, 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<\/em> is undeniably a performance vehicle for its American lead, Jodie Foster, who finds herself again somewhat in The Silence Of The Lambs<\/em> mode, as a shrink-turned-amateur-detective.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Foster\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n At first glance, this seems like a clear-cut meltdown. Yet after Lilian is approached by Paula\u2019s daughter Val\u00e9rie (Lu\u00e0na Bajrami), the analyst gets wind that something about her departed former patient\u2019s family is off. Convinced by a quack hypnotist that these events are an elaborate case of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu, Lilian digs further, enlisting the help of her eye-doctor ex Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil) \u2014 much to the ire of her unimpressed son Julien (Vincent Lacoste) \u2014 and trotting around the French capital with a voice recorder \u00e0 la Twin Peaks<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Visually, A Private Life<\/em> is tr\u00e8s chic. Georges Lechaptois\u2019 cinematography, Katia Wyszkop\u2019s production design and B\u00e9n\u00e9dicte Mouret\u2019s costuming combine for an aesthetic feast. Below this gloss, though, Zlotowski, Anne Berest and Ga\u00eblle Mac\u00e9\u2019s 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 T\u00c1R<\/em>. 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.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n That does not detract from the fun of the ride, however. French-film fans will be pleased with its stellar Gallic ensemble \u2014 especially Quantum Of Solace<\/em>\u2019s Mathieu Amalric, who makes an excellent villain \u2014 elevated to new levels by the brilliance of Foster, who adeptly navigates this twisty world. And \u2014 a fluent speaker, having attended a lyc\u00e9e as a child \u2014 she does it all in impeccable French.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/div>\n This stylish, silly and strange whodunnit\/family-drama mash-up, while shaky at times, is a fun filmic amuse-bouche, with Foster on top form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Paris, a spiralling psychotherapist (Foster) suspects one of her patients may have been murdered. While film and television history has made way for a plethora of onscreen therapists \u2014 from Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting to Lorraine Bracco in The Sopranos \u2014 it was once relatively rare for shrinks to achieve main-character status. Between last year\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-47"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11229,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11227\/revisions\/11229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/a-private-life.jpg\")
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