Movie review
French filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski’s beguiling “A Private Life” signals early that it’s no ordinary noir. The film begins with the malevolent twang of the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer,” played over a shot of a bare arm lying in the snow. Snowflakes, barely paler than the exposed skin, fall on it, softly piling on — and then, suddenly and playfully, the fingers twitch.
“A Private Life” is the story of a psychiatrist, and as such it delves into unexpected places in the mind — curiously beautiful dream sequences, like that arm. Dr. Lilian Steiner (Jodie Foster, in a performance almost entirely in French) is an American in Paris: divorced from her ex-husband Gaby (Daniel Auteuil), distant from her adult son Julien (Vincent Lacoste), keeping herself busy seeing patients and smoking. (This American is very French.) At the film’s start, Lilian learns that one of her patients, Paula (Virginie Efira), has unexpectedly died, and Paula’s doe-eyed daughter Valérie (Luàna Bajrami) tells Lilian the death was a suicide. But Lilian, in the manner of all noir heroines, begins to wonder whether Paula was murdered and launches an investigation — accompanied, unexpectedly and delightfully, by Gaby.
What happens next isn’t as important as how it happens — how Zlotowski tells a dark story in warm autumn tones (the film’s depiction of Paris in the fall is enchanting); how Foster adds another mesmerizing performance to her long gallery of smart, complicated on-screen women; how somehow, sneakily, Lilian and Gaby’s relationship finds its way from a subplot to the heart of the film. Foster and Auteuil have a charming, playful chemistry; you wonder why these two ever split up, and late in the film, Lilian’s wondering, too, asking him point-blank, “Why did you leave me?” (His answer, with a sigh: “Pass me the cigarette.”)
“A Private Life” is a murder mystery only on its surface; at its heart, it’s an exploration of a lonely woman’s extremely active mind, and an unexpectedly moving story of becoming more present in one’s real life, rather than one’s imaginary one. Foster, her face radiating wary intelligence, invites us into Lilian’s head, letting us see her listening, learning, changing just a bit. I don’t imagine that Zlotowski is planning a multi-movie franchise in which Lilian and Gaby solve crimes, drink wine and share cigarettes. As they might say, quel dommage.
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