A Private Life – Film Review
by Fran Winston

Directed by: Rebecca Zlotowski
Starring:  Jodie Foster, Daniel Auteuil, Virginie Efira, Mathieu Amalric, Vincent Lacoste, Luana Bajrami

In cinemas June 26

This French movie arrives in cinemas following a 10-minute standing ovation in Cannes and a history-making turn for Jodie Foster when she became the first American nominated for the Lumière Award for Best Actress.

The latter is hardly a surprise; Foster is excellent in everything she does. Here she plays Dr Lilian Steiner, an apathetic and jaded Jewish-American psychiatrist living and working in Paris. She finds herself haunted by the death of a patient who committed suicide, to the extent that she begins spontaneously crying. She seeks help from a hypnotherapist who, through regression therapy, shows that her past life during World War II was intertwined with the dead woman.

Following this, Lilian becomes convinced her patient was in fact murdered and, alongside her ex-husband Gabriel (played by Daniel Auteuil), begins to investigate the dead woman’s husband. However, she is haunted by her hypnotherapy vision, and it colours her perception of the situation, even spilling into her relationship with her son. Her paranoia is heightened as she finds herself stalked and becomes convinced it is connected to the case.

This wears its Hitchcockian influence on its sleeve. As her investigation into the death heightens, more layers of mystery are added to the story, creating further suspense. Rather than indulge an audience with one twist, there are two here – although one is rather predictable. However, in Foster’s hands, they remain engaging.

She is the North Star of this film and holds everything together. This is just as well because overall, the story is rather meandering and flimsy. The regression adds nothing to it other than highlighting the character’s Jewish identity, but that is never properly explored, so it feels somewhat redundant. With red herrings galore, the resolution is something of an anti-climax.

If you don’t scratch the surface and over-analyse this, it is a relatively strong psychological thriller. However, as soon as you start to break down the plot, it falls apart. Zlotowski tries to do far too much with the story, and not all of it succeeds. However, Foster’s relationship with Auteuil is eminently watchable and makes for some of the best moments of this film. I’m not sure it deserved the lengthy Cannes ovation, but it has enough elements to keep you watching.