The most prominent hook to A Private Life, Jodie Foster in a rare French-language role, is probably the least interesting thing about this thoroughly enjoyable thriller for grown-ups that at its best harks back to the stylish, spiky entertainments of Claude Chabrol. Foster plays Dr. Lilian Steiner, an American in Paris working as a psychotherapist. In the film's first few scenes, one of her long-term clients threatens to sue her after one hypnosis session cured the smoking habit that years of talk therapy couldn't,
After dozens of films over a storied six-decade career, Jodie Foster is trying something new, playing the lead role in a French film for the very first time. There's hardly a trace of an American accent in Foster's turn as Parisian therapist Lilian Steiner in A Private Life (Vie privee) and she appears to be very much at home. The character she plays is an American woman who built her career in France.
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Rebecca Zlotowski’s film presents a captivating mystery where Jodie Foster’s character, a psychoanalyst, investigates a suspected murder linked to her patient’s suicide.