By Dan Skip Allen

I’ve been a fan of Jodie Foster for about 50 years now. Her performances in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and Taxi Driver have been ones I’ve watched many times. That doesn’t even mention her two Oscar winning performances in The Accused and Silence of the Lambs. She’s been an incredible actress for many years, but not until now has she done a film using a language she learned as a kid and has become fluent in it. That language is French. “The Private Life” is a French film starring this incredible actress. Like many of her other movies, she’s equally great in this French language. The film benefits from that tremendously because of her.

Dr. Lilien Stiener (Jodie Foster) is a psychiatrist in Paris, France. She has a thriving business and an interesting family life. When one of her best clients doesn’t show up for their third appointment in a row, she starts to get worried. Eventually, she gets a phone call from her client’s daughter informing her of her mother’s demise. She had committed suicide from her prescription medication that the psychiatrist had proscribed to her. After she attends the funeral and talks to the daughter, she starts to think something strange happened to this woman. There may have been some foul play here. Not until she starts to investigate on her own does she realize that.

Besides Foster, there is a terrific supporting cast. First but not least is Mathieu Amalric, who plays the husband of the deceased woman. He seems to be very suspicious in his guilt because of who the woman is and how she died. His daughter in the film, played by Luana Bajrami who also has some suspicions about him and her mothers therapist because of the drugs she prescribed to her. These two do a great job of helping to get the investigation going. In flashbacks, the deceased woman is played by Virginie Efira. These scenes delve into Foster and her client therapist relationship. There are good clues to uncover in these conversations. Two relatives of the Foster character are her son, played by Vincent Lacoste and ex-husband, played by Daniel Auteuil. The mother has a bit of an estranged relationship with her son even though they see each other from time to time. The ex-husband plays a bigger part in the overall investigation because the Foster character didn’t have anyone else to turn to. He is a very good opposite, Foster. All of the supporting characters in the story represent something important, so they shouldn’t be dismissed in the film.

An interesting aspect of the movie is a character who is a hypnotherapist and she has the Foster character go into her subconscious to see if she can pinpoint something of significance to the investigation and her relationship with the deceased. This scene bears fruit in the context of the overall story. Even the cinematography was different in this scene to show the difference between the mental plane and the physical one. There are some clues in this scene that help the movie progress forward quite a lot. I liked how this scene was used overall to help flesh out character relationships and the story as a whole. It was very well directed by Rebecca Zlotowski.

Even though “A Private Life” is a mystery/crime film, it also has a comedic vibe to it. Most of the movie is relatively dramatic and serious, but Foster brings a lighter tone to her character. Specifically, her relationship with her ex-husbands character is kind of lighthearted. They have a nice balance within the context of the story. They drive around a lot in France and mainly Paris, and this also gives viewers a nice look at the Paris streets where they may now have that opportunity to see much of this beautiful European city or countryside. Getting the time within the movie to see Foster and Auteuil work together was a treat for me. They were a fantastic duo to watch on screen.

One thing I don’t talk about as often as I should with my reviews is music /soundtrack or the score in various films. The score is good here, but one particular song choice popped up twice that made me pretty happy. And that is “Psycho Killer” from the talking heads. It made me laugh both times it popped up because it helped release the tension during the course of the movie. Having that song specifically was a brilliant choice on the directors behalf. I don’t hear enough of the “Talking Heads” music in my life. 

“A Private Life “ was a very enjoyable movie to watch. I don’t usually see that many films in the French language, but I tend to watch a few every year. Seeing an actress that I admire as much as I do in Foster doing incredible French was remarkable to me. She’s done it all in her career, so this was adding a feather to her bare if you will. The rest of the cast is pretty good as well. The direction by Zlotowski is pretty good, especially during the hypnosis scene. This movie was a fun murder mystery that had me going in different directions throughout. I was confused at times, but that was okay because it kept me on my feet. It just shows you that you never know what you’re going to get, and Foster kept on surprising me with her choices of roles. I didn’t see this one coming from her.

4 stars