Thank god for Jodie Foster

A Private Life is a French film starring Jodie Foster as a psychoanalyst navigating what might be a murder mystery. It’s a psychological thriller (kind of), and a complex character study, and while it is très, très French, with elements that feel like a fever dream, Foster’s presence will keep you glued. She has a face you could watch for ever. It moves. It’s expressive. It captivates. She hasn’t meddled with it. ‘I don’t want to be some Botoxed weirdo,’ she has said. It makes such a refreshing change to see a 63-year-old woman who looks like a 63-year-old woman rather than a haunted doll. In fact, if it weren’t for her and Frances McDormand, it would probably be game over.

Foster – who speaks fluent French – is Lilian Steiner, an American who relocated to Paris many years ago and has built up a successful practice. She lives a tasteful life. Her clothes are tasteful. I’d kill for her coat. And scarf. Her apartment is tasteful, and it’s located in an elegant period building with one of those magnificent spiral staircases. A nod to Vertigo, perhaps. So much taste, but even before anything happens, we’re drawn to what is going on beneath.

Today, Lilian is beset by irritations. The loud music from the apartment upstairs disturbs her. One patient is demanding his money back after a one-time appointment with a hypnotist has just cured his smoking habit despite years of therapy with her. (You can see his point.) And then there is the matter of Paula, a patient who has just taken her own life. Lilian, who isn’t one to question herself, can’t believe she would miss the signs, so is Paula’s death suspicious? Has there been foul play?

Paula’s husband (Mathieu Amalric) and daughter believe Lilian is to blame, as she had prescribed the sleeping pills on which Paula overdosed. (But can an analyst prescribe?) Lilian, on the other hand, who has learned of a mighty inheritance that would pass to them, suspects the pair of murder. She turns detective, recruiting her rather lovely and terrifically accommodating ex-husband (played by the great Daniel Auteuil) to her cause while contending with bouts of uncontrollable crying. Her eyes perpetually leak tears as if something deep is making its way to the surface, which it probably is. It’s most unlike Lilian who, as a rule, is such a detached person she can’t even show affection towards her son and demurs when invited to hold her own baby grandson.

She decides to consult the hypnotist herself and, as we see, will experience a past-life regression that is bizarre. Nazis are involved, and an opera house, and snowflakes, and an orchestra with a murderous conductor. Lilian, we understand, is properly unravelling. Lilian is having a breakdown. Has she ever been truly present in her own life? Does she ever truly listen to herself or anyone else? Had I been one of her patients I, too, might have clamoured for my money back. 

As I said, it is très, très French, and also pretty Freudian, its focus suppressed memories, emotions and desires. Yet it comes neatly wrapped in thriller tropes as Lilian is terrorised by anonymous phone calls, an intruder to her apartment, the vandalisation of her car. Who is doing this? Who wants to frighten her? The film is tightly directed by Rebecca Zlotowski and stays on the move with Lilian’s mania, but it can be obtuse and lack coherence. Judaism features heavily for reasons I couldn’t compute (and also, weirdly, there’s an open casket at a shiva which surely would never happen). The nature of Lilian’s relationship with her own mother is mentioned but the subject is abandoned as soon as we encounter it. Also it would have been useful to have an explainer for some of her visions while under hypnosis. Perhaps just the snowflakes? 

And yet it holds our attention because Foster – who has splendid chemistry with Auteuil – holds our attention. She is Lilian through and through – and there isn’t a single scene where she doesn’t make an interesting choice or something doesn’t flicker over that face that keeps you hooked. The ending might not be as satisfying as you would wish – it’s anticlimactic – but you buy it because of Foster. Without her, and Frances McDormand, and also, now I think about it, Annette Bening, it would be game over, for sure.