What a strange little film, uncertain if it’s a Hitchcockian thriller or a comedic poke at the shibboleths of psychoanalysis, A Private Life is definitively a vehicle for Jodie Foster, comèdienne.
The American pulls off an impeccable accent in her first French-speaking role, playing Dr Lillian Steiner, an expat psychiatrist who treats patients from her elegant Parisian home. Unmoored by the suicide of Paula, a patient whose husband blames Steiner for prescribing the fatal pills, the doctor becomes convinced that in fact murder was the cause of death.
A Private Life looks lovely, Paris glows, everyone lives in great apartments and Jodie Foster’s hair and outfits are immaculate. But the direction meanders tonally as if co-writer and director Rebecca Ziotowski can’t quite settle on a genre or perspective.
Along with the haunting presence of Hitchcock, there's a whiff of Patricia Highsmith's misanthropic tales and a twist of mysticism. The preternaturally stoic Dr Steiner is baffled when tears keep emerging from her eyes and seeks medical advice from her estranged ophthalmologist ex-husband, played by Daniel Auteuil. Romantic reconciliations ensue and provide some of the most enjoyable scenes in the film as we’re invited to watch two gorgeous actors d’un certain age in the throes of passion.
But all that isn’t enough. Ziotowski throws in suspicious shenanigans around contested inheritances and revelations about parentage. Steiner goes to see a clairvoyant-hypnotist who triggers a vision of a past life where Steiner was a male cellist witnessing the Nazi raiding a concert hall in Paris in 1942 to round up French Jews.
Both her ex-husband and estranged son Julien (Vincent Lacoste) are implicated as collaborators in this vision, and what does that say about her sub-conscious relationship with them?
There comes a point when keeping up with the plot of A Private Life becomes all too wearisome. Where is all of this going? Does one need to have studied the kabbalah to appreciate the buried references and imagery? To tease out all the film's plot twists would probably require a second viewing and agile dodging of MacGuffins; but life is short, and A Private Life isn’t particularly.
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