Rebecca Zlotowski’s new film, A Private Life, is billed as a psychological thriller, but lest you be fooled by the advertising gods, this intriguing film is much more interested in psychology than thrills and chills.
And although there is a mystery involved, it takes a back seat to the search that the main character, Lilian (Jodie Foster), undertakes, looking for answers to what unfolds as a misleading question.
Zlotowsi as director and co-writer (with Anne Beres and Gaëlle Macé) is responsible for this misdirection, but we go willingly, swept along in Foster’s portrayal of an intense American psychiatrist practicing in Paris caught up in an attempt to understand (read: investigate) a patient’s suicide. Her search opens up another question in Lilian’s mind: other people’s work leads to “fixing things,” but what does she fix?
Lilian is aided by her ex-husband (the delightful and delicious Daniel Auteuil) and a hypnotist (Sophie Guillemin), both of whom ultimately help her look inward to uncover keys to solving the mystery.
Zlotowsi has created a film world that subtly sweeps the audience along into Lilian’s journey of discovery.
George Lechaptois’s intimate cinematography doesn’t open up from mostly interior settings (including Lilian’s hypnotic revelations) to exteriors until more than halfway through the film. And using Talking Heads’ driving “Psycho Killer” to open the film, then later underscore the evolution of Lilian’s investigation, is nuanced but revealing.
There are some threads left dangling along the way, however, that represent some unexplored territory in Lilian’s past. Because we become invested in Lilian—thanks to Foster’s uncompromising portrayal of a complicated, intelligent woman—we want to know more, but are ultimately left wanting.
What is clear, however, is that through Lilian A Private Life validates the axiom that we might listen to, but often don’t hear, what others are saying. That’s a discovery more exhilarating than most other “psychological thrillers” deliver at the box office these days.
Editor’s Note: A Private Life is now playing at The SLO Film Center at the Palm Theatre.