Jodie Foster acts in fluent French but still curses in English as neurotic psychotherapist Dr. Lilian Steiner, an American living in Paris, in the urbane mystery-thriller A Private Life.
To be precise, the movie’s thrills are minor — some light action and peril in the vein of a Murder, She Wrote or Moonlighting. And the central mystery, surrounding one of Dr. Steiner’s patients who goes missing, generates too few “a-ha!” revelations in its winding road to an anticlimactic resolution.
Steeped in an atmosphere of suspicion, the film, from writer-director Rebecca Zlotowski (Other People’s Children), better serves as a drama exploring the emotionally distant doctor being shaken from the stasis of her lonely life. A complicated woman, Lilian Steiner provides two-time Oscar-winner Foster a chance to command the screen with subtle intensity in a context we’ve never seen from her in fifty-plus years as a leading lady.
Lilian has a comfortable life in Paris, but has hit an uncomfortable patch of mid-life, following an apparently acrimonious divorce from her French ex, Gabi (a rumpled but alert Daniel Auteuil). She’s also semi-estranged from grown son Julien (Vincente Lacoste), a new father himself.
Though making efforts towards closeness with her son, Lilian can’t quite connect. And in a palpably awkward visit to see him, beautifully acted by Foster, she can barely bring herself to even hold her two-month-old grandson.
Adding a touching layer to the character, Lilian can perceive that something inside is keeping her stuck, or closed off, even from her patients. One perturbed patient (Noam Morgensztern) calls her on her complacency, dramatically firing her as his therapist, telling her he saw a hypnotist who was able to accomplish with one session what eight years of Lilian’s psychoanalysis had failed to do: get him to quit smoking.
The sly humor embedded in her sessions, and in her prickly interactions with practically everyone she meets, contrasts nicely with the furrowed-brow seriousness permeating the case of her missing patient, Paula (Virginie Efira).
More of an offscreen presence, Paula is glimpsed in flashbacks, presented in fragments, visually and figuratively, often reclined seductively across the couch in Lilian’s office. Meant to be an enigma, à la the missing ingénue in an old film noir, she doesn’t take on much dimension as a character worth obsessing over, despite Lilian’s clear obsession with her.
Drawn into the case by certain clues, and her confidential knowledge of what Paula discussed in her sessions, Lilian dives into solving the mystery and, in turn, awakens her spirit and her sensuality.
She imagines herself in Paula’s fantasies, depicted in offbeat digressions to Paula in a previous life playing in an orchestra alongside Lilian, as her clandestine male lover. The previous life fantasies only get more confounding as they’re stirred into the plot of Lilian’s family drama, which also coincides with Paula’s family drama.
Mathieu Amalric brings an amusing shadiness to the brief supporting role of Paula’s husband, Simon, who’s much too obviously up to something. But the mystery plot fizzles, cluttered rather than enhanced by the previous life mumbo jumbo, side plots and red herrings, and ultimately, an underwhelming conclusion.
In the midst of probing Paula’s disappearance, though, Lilian leans on Gabi and rekindles a bit of romance. This leads to the film’s most unexpected pleasure, seeing Foster and Auteuil banter and flirt, and nail the rapport of once-bitter exes who’ve cooled off enough to contemplate perhaps being friends or even fuck-buddies. One can imagine a whole other movie about that, more thrilling and mysterious than this one.
A Private Life (★★☆☆☆) is rated R and playing in select theaters nationwide. Visit fandango.com.
The blonde, busty housekeeper Millie portrayed by Sydney Sweeney in The Housemaid brushes off several early signs that all is not as it appears inside the posh Long Island home of the Winchesters, where she has just been hired.
Some of the signs are so glaring that they play like punchlines. "Welcome, Millie. Here's your room in the attic, with just one window waaaay up there that doesn't open, and a door that locks from the outside. And be as loud as you want, because no one can hear you all the way downstairs."
Adapting Freida McFadden's bestselling 2022 novel -- the first in a series of three Housemaid books, so far -- director Paul Feig and screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenshine inject winking humor into a setup bristling with dread and paranoia. In concept, we're watching a psychological thriller, but the tongue-in-cheek tone is what usually prevails.
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!
You must be logged in to post a comment.