A Private Life: French Comic Thriller is a Veritable 'Only Murders in L’Arrondissement '
By Chris Knight
Rating: A-
The French film A Private Life (Vie privée) opens with the Talking Heads song “Psycho Killer.” It’s almost too on the nose, as though it were written for the movie and not just picked up by it — the disjointed, dreamlike lyrics, the occasional lurch into French. It’s perfect.
Jodie Foster stars as Lilian Steiner, an American psychiatrist living and working in Paris. It’s always odd when American actors are fluent in French — that’s OUR second language! — but she’s up there with Kevin Kline, Bradley Cooper and others. (Read our interview with Jodie Foster).
Daniel Auteuil and Jodie Foster in A Private Life. How’s Jodie’s French? Superb!
Lilian speaks it almost exclusively, but tellingly slips into English when she’s upset, at one point huffing about the “fucking French” and their propensity to take inconveniently timed long vacations.
When we first meet her she’s being accosted by a longtime patient who wants to — break up with her, I guess you’d call it. He’s upset that after years of therapy he still smoked, until a random session with a hypnotherapist cured him. He wants his money back — therapy costs and cigarettes too. Lilian seemed unperturbed.
Far more troubling is the news that another patient, Paula (Virginie Efira), has just passed away. The woman’s daughter contacts Lilian to tell her it was suicide. But as the psychiatrist starts asking questions, Paula’s motives and final days seem less certain. Maybe it was murder. The daughter seems suspicious. So does the husband, played with fidgety flawlessness by Mathieu Amalric. Lilian seeks out that first patient’s hypnotherapist, but a session with her only muddies the waters further.
In the midst of my notes scrawled during a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall are the words “only murders in l’arrondissement.” And this darkly funny thriller does indeed feel like a French version of the popular TV series.
And it’s very French. Everyone smokes, even the non-smokers. Much red wine accompanies every meal. Lilian has an ex-husband (Daniel Auteuil) whom she convinces to help her; he agrees, and they also sleep together, though he has a girlfriend on the side. (“She’s married, so it’s OK,” he says.)
Meanwhile, between scenes of various characters shouting, “Don’t you psychoanalyze me!” Lilian is quietly coming apart at the seams, going from a skeptical science-minded doctor to one who believes in past lives as a source of current trauma.
She starts following Paula’s husband. Someone is also following her. Or is it all in her head?
You’ll have a great time following along in French director and co-writer Rebecca Zlotowski’s latest, which had its world premiere last May at the Cannes film festival. Sit back and enjoy or, as they like to say in Cannes: “Bonne séance!”
A Private Life. Directed by Rebecca Zlotowski. Starring Jodie Foster, Daniel Auteuil, and Mathieu Amalric. In theatres January 23.