Directed by Rebecca Zlotowski | Written by Zlotowski, Anne Berest and Gaëlle Macé | 103 min | ▲▲▲1/2
An earlier version of this review ran on the blog during the Toronto International Film Festival 2025
The main draw here — though the film has a number of supplementary pleasures — is Jodie Foster performing in an almost fully French-language role. She plays Lilian Steiner, a deeply troubled American psychiatrist living in Paris.
But here’s the thing — Lilian doesn’t think she’s deeply troubled. That’s where the wry humour under the surface of the film lies, in Lilian’s complete lack of self-awareness. Aside from the language, it’s such a different role for Foster, playing someone so unconsciously befuddled. She’s probably terrible at her job as a therapist — how did she ever get into this line of work?
Lilian is looking into the death of a patient, but as she travels through Paris she finds she’s weeping uncontrollably in public. She think’s she’s caught some kind of virus. She starts to believe her patient’s daughter and husband (Luàna Bajrami and Mathieu Amalric) may be murderers, this while she tries to connect with her own estranged, adult son and physician ex-husband (Vincent Lacoste and Daniel Auteuil).
In the midst of this mystery bubbles up a peculiar subplot involving a hypnotist who seems to have a lot more success with clients than Lilian does, including with Lilian herself as she enters a Lynchian dream state with her deceased patient. Then the movie veers into a relationship drama with the ex, who she also teams up with to try and find evidence proving their theory about the murder.
The film’s concerns feel very particular to French cinema — sex, despair, humour, age, and wine. Watching it I kept thinking, “There’s no way a picture with this loose a feel for tone or plot would ever get made in North America.” I know director Zlotowski’s work mostly from the 2024 Emmanuelle reboot, but this is more fun.
We also get a well-chosenTalking Heads needle drop (the track that’s partly in French, you can guess) while autumn in Paris looks delightful, with Foster sporting a gorgeous coat and scarf strolling around Le Marais. It’s a great part for her — she’s rarely been so pursed, the lines around her mouth deep and parenthetical, and equally rarely so unhinged. She’s described herself acting in French as being more anxious, and she speaks in a higher register. That works well for Lilian.
If the A Private Life is unlikely to linger too long in your head that’s no criticism, it’s just a whimsical charmer.
