Jodie Foster is such a trustworthy actor, so intelligent about her credibility, that she can lead a patchwork French mystery-drama like \u201cA Private Life\u201d \u2014 which boasts the Academy Award winner\u2019s Franco-fluency \u2014 as if it were simultaneously a wink at her celebrity, a perfect showcase for her talent and a handsome mess fortunate to have her imprimatur. In a way that makes her an ideal French movie star: a special brand of high wattage (Deneuve, Huppert, Binoche) that imbues just the right amount of class to an undercooked piece of adult peekaboo, while still burnishing the actor\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n
Filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski, whose last film was the heartfelt, complicated \u201cOther People\u2019s Children,\u201d<\/a> does well to cast Foster as American-born, Paris-based psychiatrist Lilian Steiner. It isn\u2019t long after meeting Lilian in her well-appointed apartment\/office, alone on a rainy night, bristling at her upstairs neighbors\u2019 loud music and leaving a brusque voicemail for an absentee patient, that we sense this control-minded professional is in for some destabilizing. And knowing this is in Foster\u2019s hands comes as close to a guarantee of quality as a movie can offer.<\/p>\n The swerve comes when Lilian learns that the absentee client \u2014 a beautiful, troubled woman named Paula (Virginie Efira, seen in flashbacks) \u2014 died suddenly. After being thrown out of the family\u2019s shiva by widower Simon (Mathieu Amalric), but clinging to cryptic messages from the daughter (Luana Bajrami), Lilian suspects foul play rather than the official ruling of suicide. She even wrangles her affable ex-husband, Gaby (Daniel Auteuil), an eye doctor she\u2019s still on good terms with, for investigative support.<\/p>\n It\u2019s debatable, however, whether Lilian is on to something or just scrambling to make sense of a tragedy to assuage her own guilt, a question that rattles in our ears with every campy symphonic flourish or percussive ornamentation in the aggressive musical score. Zlotowski, working again with co-screenwriter Anne Berest and ultra-capable cinematographer George Lechaptois, doesn\u2019t go for half-measures, so when Lilian sets aside her skepticism to look into things with a suspicious hypnotist, it comes complete with a red-hued Freudian dream sequence that convinces this tightly wound, coldly reasoned doctor to believe in the florid logic of past lives. It\u2019s a change that comes as a surprise to her grown son (a wry Vincent Lacoste) who\u2019s always had to accommodate a carefully distanced mom.<\/p>\n As \u201cA Private Life\u201d moves along, with Lilian negotiating a break-in, threats and lapses in judgment, it never exactly coheres. Yet it somehow entertains, which is a testament to Zlotowski\u2019s energy juggling her various theme-colored story balls. While the mystery plot strains to be interesting as a lesson for its protagonist about how one never can fully know another human being, Lilian\u2019s and Gaby\u2019s rekindled affection is a wonderfully mature strand of midlife complexity, with Auteuil and Foster giving all their scenes the kind of nuanced, lived-in humor that suggests a flinty couple who never fully believed they were done with each other.<\/p>\n The slouchless cast also includes icons Ir\u00e8ne Jacob and Aurore Cl\u00e9ment, \u201cReturn to Seoul\u201d<\/a> breakout Park Ji-Min and documentary legend Frederick Wiseman (as Lilian\u2019s mentor), but all in bits that range from stunty to blink-and-you\u2019ll-miss-them. Again, the party seems like it was fun, and Foster attracts a deserving cohort for her first all-French-speaking role since 2004\u2019s \u201cA Very Long Engagement.\u201d<\/a> But it also leaves one realizing that \u201cA Private Life,\u201d despite the commanding leading lady holding its center, is a bit mixed up by design.<\/p>\n ‘A Private Life’<\/p>\n In French, with subtitles<\/p>\n Rated: <\/b>R, for some sexual content, graphic nudity, language and brief violence<\/p>\n Running time:<\/b> 1 hour, 43 minutes<\/p>\n Playing:<\/b> In limited release Friday, Jan. 16<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jodie Foster is such a trustworthy actor, so intelligent about her credibility, that she can lead a patchwork…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":520368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[72332,231750,1582,276,231744,231746,59047,81192,174725,231748,231747,2961,69028,224,5337,231742,2290,231743,231745,231749],"class_list":{"0":"post-520367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-bit","9":"tag-breakout-park-ji-min","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-daniel-auteuil","13":"tag-deneuve","14":"tag-eye-doctor","15":"tag-foster","16":"tag-gaby","17":"tag-high-wattage","18":"tag-huppert","19":"tag-la","20":"tag-lilian","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-private-life","24":"tag-review","25":"tag-therapist-jodie-foster","26":"tag-trustworthy-actor","27":"tag-widower-simon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115904847780947988","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}