Rebecca Zlotowski’s “A Private Life” starts in one place, promising a comic, even cozy, mystery. Its initial gestures for gravity, such as fantasy scenes about two Jewish lesbians in Nazi-occupied France, feel unearned. By its second half, the film’s true intentions and subject come into focus. Its protagonist Lilian Steiner (out lesbian actor Jodie Foster) looks like Jessica Fletcher (of the ‘80s TV series “Murder She Wrote”) as a psychiatrist, but she’s battling her own unhappiness.
Lilian is disturbed by the sound of her neighbor blasting Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.” Opening the door of her apartment/office, she’s greeted by a patient who wants to stop seeing her. He set out to stop smoking, but he was only able to do so with the aid of a hypnotherapist. Angry about the 32,000 Euros he spent on Lilian’s services, he storms out. She feels trapped by the banality of such problems.
Lilian wonders why her patient Paula Cohen-Solal (Virginie Efira) has skipped their last three sessions. She learns that Paula has died of an overdose of the medication Lilian prescribed — not 100% legally — to help her get to sleep. While the death is initially suspected to be a suicide, Lilian becomes suspicious of Paula’s daughter Valérie (Luana Barjami) and husband Simon (Mathieu Amalric). Simon angrily throws her out when she turns up at Paula’s memorial. Drawn to visit the hypnotherapist himself, she envisions herself and Paula performing in a concert hall during World War II. Although skeptical, she continues pursuing her own unconscious.
As a mystery, “A Private Life” jams too many threads together. The plot doesn’t seem to be its main priority, but it’s too tightly wound to get away from it. The true heart of Zlotowski’s film is a character study. Lilian would do well to heed the phrase “Physician, heal thyself.” Until she’s forced to confront another woman’s death, she can’t even acknowledge the faultlines of her own life.
Foster’s performance takes Lilian on a trip towards real knowledge of her inner self. Her face is a bundle of nerves, troubled by having to hold everything together. Acting out a frayed yet friendly relationship, Foster and Daniel Auteuil, who plays her ex-husband, Gabriel, have terrific chemistry. (Foster, who speaks French fluently, fits into this well-to-do Parisian milieu.) Auteuil’s character is amiable yet slightly buffoonish. He’s accepted the dynamics of their relationship, which encompass some lingering dependency. As she explores her fantasies, she realizes unconscious hostility towards her son Julian (Vincent Lacoste). She imagines him as an agent of the German militia, even though she, Julian, and Gabriel are all Jewish.
One of the film’s threads regards the possible queerness of Paula. When Lilian thinks about their time together, she pictures the two women touching. The dialogue goes even further, with Paula saying she’s carrying Lilian’s child. Their affection takes place under the watchful eye of Simon, who threatens violence. These visions are based upon impulses Lilian detected in Paula, who said she loved her psychiatrist and referred to their sessions as “our nighttime tryst.” But any exploration of what this meant to Paula and what it suggests about Lilian — the one, after all, imagining their bond — goes no further than a dramatization of the latter’s fantasies. Is the idea that they were lovers in a past life, which Liliane proposes, a form of denial of her attraction to women? Casting Foster pushes this possibility forward, but it’s a shame the film ends up dropping it.
“A Private Life” looks back to the era when Hollywood discovered the theories of Sigmund Freud. (Zlotowski’s dramatization of Lilian’s unconscious conjures up ‘40s melodrama.) Lilian bursts with repressed impulses. This even manifests physically: she can’t stop crying. Her attempt to stay strong has instead rendered her numb. The Nazi imagery connects to a stalker spraying a swastika on her door. She may be slightly paranoid when she accuses the hypnotherapist of borderline antisemitism, but she has reason to be on guard.
Amidst all this, “A Private Life” still piles on a twisty narrative about Lilian investigating Paula’s fate. Ultimately, its balance falls in the right place, but as a thriller, it barely functions. It proves better at shedding light on Lilian’s hidden corners than telling a story about them.
“A Private Life” | Directed by Rebecca Zlotowski | Sony Pictures Classics | In French with English subtitles | Opens Jan. 16th at the Angelika and AMC Lincoln Square
