‘A Private Life’ Review: Jodie Foster Turns Detective in a Noir-Tinged Psychological Puzzle

Working along a line long explored by Woody Allen —where criminal mysteries intersect with psychology and, in particular, alternative approaches to the study of the mind— A Private Life feels like the kind of film that was never made, and almost certainly never will be: a collaboration between an now-octogenarian Allen and Jodie Foster. In the absence of the semi-retired and somewhat cancelled New Yorker, it is Rebecca Zlotowski who takes charge, giving the material a slightly more noir-inflected tone than Allen might have applied, while still drawing on many of the same ingredients: romantic affairs, marital secrets, morally ambiguous behaviour, and, inevitably, the odd Nazi.

Foster—who speaks impeccable French—plays Liliane Steiner, an American psychiatrist who has lived in Paris for many years. She was married to Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), with whom she has a son, Julien (Vincent Lacoste), and even a small grandson. Liliane has a full practice, but she belongs to that category of psychiatrists who seem to have lost genuine interest in what their patients say. She records her sessions on old MiniDiscs and only truly perks up when a patient stops showing up—and therefore stops paying. The film opens with one such patient announcing that, after eight years of therapy, he will no longer be seeing her, having cured his smoking addiction in a single visit to a hypnotist.

The real jolt comes when Liliane learns that Paula Cohen-Solal (Virginie Efira), a patient who had recently missed several appointments, has died. At the funeral, two things become immediately clear: Paula’s husband (Mathieu Amalric) despises Liliane and wants her gone—accusing her of having prescribed the pills Paula used to kill herself—and that Liliane herself cannot stop crying. This uncontrollable weeping is entirely out of character and threatens to interfere with her professional life.

Unable to explain it on her own, she consults her ex-husband, now an optometrist, who confirms that there is nothing physically wrong with her eyes. With no other solution in sight, she turns to the hypnotist—the same one who cured her former patient—who, in a single session, sends Liliane into a supposed past life set in Nazi-occupied Paris. In this hypnotic vision, many figures from her present reappear in different guises, including, in a crucial role, her late patient Paula.

The two threads begin to converge when a series of events leads Liliane to suspect that Paula may not have killed herself after all. Was she murdered? And if so, by whom—the husband, the daughter, someone else entirely? With occasional help from Gabriel, Liliane turns into an unlikely, informal detective. Alongside the physical investigation—complete with stolen tapes and amateur surveillance—there is another inquiry unfolding in her hypnosis sessions. Gradually, she starts to believe that both paths are connected, much to the bafflement of her family, who cannot understand how this cool, cerebral psychiatrist has become so deeply entangled in what they dismiss as n’importe quoi.

The plot is Hitchcockian to the core, with an added Jewish dimension: both doctor and patient, as well as the dreams—or are they memories?—that bind them, are tied to the war and to Nazism in unexpected ways. Just as hypnosis can produce results that are unreliable or fleeting, A Private Life takes the risk of suggesting that supposedly more rigorous methods, such as psychoanalysis, may also be vulnerable to deception and disappointment. Liliane searches for the truth in recordings of her sessions with Paula, but what she believes she finds there may be no clearer—or more complete—than any other half-told version of the truth.

Light, amiable, and gently diverting, with a late turn toward something darker that never fully develops, Zlotowski’s film—following Other People’s Children—recalls the kind of international cinema that was once common and has since migrated to bloated, multi-episode streaming series. Zlotowski needs only 105 minutes to tell a solid story, aided by a strong supporting cast that surrounds Foster with some of the best of the French industry. Even in small roles, the film features the likes of Irène Jacob, Sophie Letourneur, and even filmmaker Frederick Wiseman. It is modest entertainment, perhaps minor, but effective—and seeing Foster perform in French remains a genuine pleasure.