AFF ’25: A Private Life

Sometimes the greatest mystery is the examination of the mind, for all of its thoughts and resulting feelings. It certainly is for psychiatrist Lilian Steiner (Jodie Foster), who investigates the death of a patient just as she would explore her client’s well-being in a session. A Private Life (2025) is an enjoyable comic mystery that proves that the therapist is the last person to know what’s going on.

This is the third time that Jodie Foster has appeared in a French film, but first as the lead actor. She attended a private school that emphasized bilingual education, which explains her lifelong fluency. As Steiner, she performs as an American who works, lives, and has a family in France. She has chosen France as her home, even though her adopted culture sometimes exasperates her into emitting American profanity. One of the great actors in film history, Foster is perfectly natural in this role, evoking the rollercoaster emotions that Steiner exhibits in her quest to know the truth of her client’s recent death. 

Typically, psychiatrists’ relationships to their patients is one of emotional restraint; invested, but not involved. Steiner’s over-commitment to her deceased female client indicates a deep emotional connection, perhaps even a romantic hopefulness. She attends Paula Cohen-Solal’s (Virginie Efira) wake and funeral service, even though her presence infuriates the widowed husband Simon (Mathieu Almaric) and intrigues daughter Valérie (Luàna Bajrami-Rahmani). True to her profession, Steiner’s investigation leads back to her own notes and recorded sessions with Paula. Surely, Steiner could not have been wrong in her diagnosis, right? 

Emotionally deepening this mystery is the subtle comedy that is present throughout the film. Steiner may be a professional psychiatrist, but is an amateur sleuth. Enlisted in her inquiry is Gabriel Haddad (Daniel Auteuil), Steiner’s own ex-husband. The scenes between Foster and Auteuil are some of the film’s most affectionate moments with the two veteran actors clearly enjoying playing off one another as former lovers brought together again by the enticement of solving a mystery.

The film does have its trippy sequences, literally, as Steiner employs adjacent methodologies including a hypnotist to investigate her client’s life, and her affections for Paula, even deeper. The moments in which Steiner is lost in subconscious thoughts or imagining a potential past life as an orchestra musician veer towards the surreal, even if it indicates Steiner’s psychiatric training may include some Freudian slippage. Regardless, all dreams must end, as Steiner’s investigations eventually lead her to know the truth of her client’s demise.

A Private Life works so well because its mystery is the therapy for its psychiatrist. Steiner solves what is foiling her work, allowing her to improve her guidance for each of her patients. As it turns out, the best treatment is to just listen. For those who enjoy clever, well-acted films, consider this your cinema prescription.

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