There are plenty of instances of French actors finding stardom in English-language cinema, from Isabelle Huppert and Jean Reno to Marion Cotillard and Vincent Cassel. It's more rare for an American to find themselves in a French-language film, speaking the language fluently and with ease. If anyone can do it, it's Jodie Foster, and she manages it beautifully in Rebecca Zlotowski's A Private Life, the story of a therapist who gets caught up in the life of a former patient while juggling her own family complexities as well.
Zlotowski, who co-wrote the screenplay with Anne Berest, directed one of my favorite contemporary French dramas in recent years, a drama called Other People's Children, starring Virginie Efira navigating the complicated waters of step-parenting. It's heartfelt but also messy, making it all the more relatable as it reflects back to us that even those relationships most filled with love sometimes hit rocky times.
She takes a similar approach to A Private Life, centering Foster as Lillian Steiner, an American psychologist long-since in Paris—she has an ex-husband, Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil) with whom she's still close, a grown son, Julien (Vincent Lacoste) and even a new grandson—who is startled by the news that one of her patients, Paula (Virginie Efira) has died unexpectedly. One can imagine the way a therapist becomes connected to their patients, and Lillian is no exception, determined to understand exactly what happened to Paula, even if it means inserting herself where she is very much not welcome.
In her attempt to understand her patient's presumed suicide, Lillian begins re-listening to the CD recordings of their sessions and becomes more and more convinced that Paula would not be capable of taking her own life. For reasons never quite explained, Lillian takes it upon herself to investigate this hunch, interrogating Paula's daughter, Valerie (Luàna Bajrami), and husband, Simon (the great Mathieu Amalric)—and succeeding in nothing but angering them. Skeptical, she even goes to a hypnotist who, though she's not convinced it's working, manages to stir up some strange and unexpected visions of a life Lillian and Paula shared in another era, namely during World War II. Yes, there are Nazis here, too.
The story itself gets a bit complex, but what's clear is Foster's assured performance; even in Lillian's most harried or stressful moments, Foster is completely in control, a feat in one language let alone two. As her not-so-estranged ex-husband, Auteuil is warm and patient, their chemistry undeniable to us and them, and their interactions are some of the best in the film. This mystery unfolds in quite curious ways, but it's also regularly amusing; Zlotowski and Berest infuse the film with enough moments of levity to keep the proceedings light.
A Private Life is most concerned with the journey Lillian goes on as a woman who thinks, at this stage in her life, she has all the answers and all her biggest self-discoveries are behind her. Paula's passing is tragic and remains a cloud over the film's narrative, but for Lillian, it's just the beginning as the doors of her own life get swung open and a whole new version blows in.
A Private Life is now in theaters.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider supporting Third Coast Review’s arts and culture coverage by making a donation. Choose the amount that works best for you, and know it goes directly to support our writers and contributors.
